Rapeflower

In the solo “Rapeflower,” Hana Umeda uses the traditional Japanese dance jiutamai to tell a personal, yet universal, story - the experience of sexual violence. This is one of the most transcultural phenomena, shared by women regardless of their ethnic identity and latitude. At the same time, the artist - a certified jiutamai dancer - looks at the violence inherent in this traditional technique. In the 19th century, jiutamai was performed exclusively by women. Female dancers were not allowed to perform on the stage, reserved for men, and appeared in so-called tea houses, pleasure districts where customers came for private dance shows. She began work on the performance with in-depth research, which she conducted as part of the “SoDA” MA program at HZT Berlin, Univeristy of Arts Berlin & Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts Berlin and the “Thinking Through the Museum” residency, Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN. The result is a bold and moving, yet subtle and visually sophisticated, performance about rebuilding oneself. "Identifying ourselves as survivors, we are often silent. We don't want a victim figure projected onto our living bodies. We become invisible by escaping from being seen as objects of pity. By avoiding confrontation with the experience of rape, we condemn ourselves to a compulsion to repeat the traumatic situation or aspects of it in search of lost control. "How to talk honestly about rape? How to situate one's own experience between tabooization and pornographization? RAPEFLOWER is an investigation conducted within one's own body. It's an experience of sexual violence - both one's own, inherited and learned - intertwined with defense strategies and survival strategies. It is something corporeal, not discursive. It is also a story about rape understood as a condition, not just a single event. Lucretia of Roman legend, after experiencing rape by Sextus Tarquinius, commits suicide, thus becoming for centuries an example of female virtue, although today her death could be interpreted as a consequence of PTSD. However, Artemisia Gentieleschi, a Baroque painter who repeatedly depicted Lucrezia in her paintings, worked through her own rape trauma precisely through artistic creation, becoming one of the first recognized female painters in European art history. Can a stage where I expose my raped body to the public and speak out on my own behalf, while embodying the experiences of sexual violence of generations of dancers, become a space for emancipation and healing?"

Hana Umeda - performer, director, dancer, graduate of cultural studies at the Institute of Polish Culture at UW, student of master Hanasaki Tokijyo, head of Hanasaki-ryu school in Tokyo, natori at jiutamai Hanasaki-ryu school. A participant in the SoDA MA program, HZT, Berlin University of Arts. In 2020, as a jiutamai Hanasaki-ryu dancer, she took the name of Sada Hanasaki. In 2021-2023, a member of the collective Center in Motion. Scholarship holder of the Young Poland program of the National Cultural Center in 2018, as part of which she made her directorial debut with the performance SadaYakko presented at Komuna Warszawa Theater. Winner of the first edition of the Scena New Situations Artistic Residency of the Contemporary Theater in Szczecin in 2022, as part of which she produced the play Faithfulness. Nominated in the IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive NonFiction, IDFA DocLab: Phenomenal Friction, Amsterdam, 2023 for VR Close. Her work and performance activities have also been presented at Cerulean Tower Noh Gakudo in Tokyo, Zero Base in Tokyo, Kunstbanken in Hamar, Norway, and at the IDFA Festival in Amsterdam.