hip-hop + butoh dance theater
In Flash butoh meets hip-hop, they try out each other’s language, and discover their commonalities, personally and culturally. – Fabrik Magazine
A dance theater duet written, choreographed, and performed by Rennie Harris and Michael Sakamoto, Flash combines their dual approaches to manifesting a body in crisis. The work is conceived as a “conversation” between the artists’ respective aesthetics (butoh and hip-hop), cultural backgrounds (Japanese-American and African-American), and personalities. Hip-hop and butoh were born from marginalized, postwar urban subcultures, and each embodies a philosophical approach to the creation of cultural identity through dance. Flash is an interdisciplinary performance, project combining butoh and hip-hop dance, multimedia, and other theatrical elements to address the intersection of urban and environmental crisis, social resistance, and corporeal identity.
