Melbourne Reviews

Yumi Umiumare and the ButohOUT! Ensemble elegenatly place, embrace, displace and reinstate their audience in and out of layered worlds from the box office till the bow.

The action has already started by the time you arrive at the venue with a man walking a banana on a leash in line to collect his ticket to see this new production Colour-Fool, but on a second glance maybe it’s a banana dressed as a man being dragged by the alpha banana on a leash?

Then you are sitting down being served “Butoh Umi style” via uber eats delivery drivers wearing PPE or is it deliveroo? You are never quite sure but totally engaged in these multi layered happenings from the collective.

These other worlds are not so unlike our own, you shouldn’t cough… because lockdown… evacaute. The real time effort of these performers is off the hook in this one. They paint their faces in front of you and don’t give you any “Something I prepared earlier” faff. The sound scape by Ai Yamamoto is delicous with live vocal additions by the cast which invites you into the visual spectical of the performance until the space is shattered by a unimous moment from the ensemble.

The one gurantee of watching a Butoh show is the eyes and feet are always ON never off. Which gives a level of tension to behold throughout. This is not your standard pure Butoh dance show though. It weaves in theatrical elements to the dance plus karoke.

More of an arc for the indivudal characters the that pop up in the work would have been nice and drawn the audience in further. The piece is still relateable and timely for a post lockdown audience.

Warning: A brocolli may or may not give birth in this performance.