Tea Maze お茶の迷路

Entangling old world Kabuki mystique with volumetric 3D performance, “Tea Maze” summons the sacred power of female archetypes and deities in a truly unique VR experience.
In collaboration with the team from the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies, Japanese-Australian performance maker Yumi Umiumare opens a Jujutsu 呪術 (Magic) portal to unfold the colourful characters of OKUNI — an initiator of Kabuki Japanese theatre in 1600’s Edo period.
Evolving out of Yumi’s solo work, “Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI”, the team combine Virtual Reality and Volumetric video to portray the many essences of the divine feminine.
Punk, playful, and exuberant, this is an intimately epic and profanely sacred ritual that invites an audience revolt of the spirit.

  • Yumi Umiumare
    Director
  • John McCormick
    Director
  • Yumi Umiumare
    Creator / Performer
  • Casey Richardson
    Creative Director
  • John McCormick
    Producer
  • Casey Richardson
    Digital Artist
  • Emrys McFerran
    Digital Artist
  • Ai Yamamoto
    Composition and Sound Design
  • Dan West
    Composition and Sound Design
  • Kim Vincs
    Volumetric Research Lead
  • Project Type:
    Virtual Reality, Performance, Installation
  • Runtime:
    15 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    October 1, 2024
  • Production Budget:
    20,000 AUD
  • Country of Origin:
    Australia
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Yumi Umiumare, John McCormick

Yumi Umiumare is a Japanese-born, multi-award-winning performer and pre-eminent master in the fields of Butoh and Butoh Cabaret. For over 30 years, she has created a distinctive style known for provoking visceral emotions and engaging with cultural identities through narratives, abstraction, unique choreography, and a sense of humor. Her work questions the role of traditional forms of dance in modern ways of living, and her social art practice includes working with marginalized communities, First Nations, refugees, culturally diverse groups, and inclusive companies, as well as through ritual and spiritual practices.
Yumi's creations have been seen across Australia, Japan, Europe, New Zealand, South East Asia, and South America, and have been featured in numerous festivals around the globe. Yumi has been recognized for her outstanding contributions to contemporary and experimental performance, receiving the Australian Council Fellowship in 2015 and the Green Room Geoffrey Milne Memorial Award in 2017. Her major works include, DasSHOKU Butoh Cabaret Series(1999-2012) , PopUp Tearoom series(2015-) and solo work Buried TeaBowl-OKUNI.(2022-) .
Yumi is a key figure of the international contemporary Butoh scene and artistic director of ButohOUT! in Melbourne since 2017.Yumi ‘s recent works focus on Dance, Tea and Spirit.
www.yumi.com.au

John McCormick is a technology based artist with a major interest in movement. John’s current works investigate the developing relationships between human, digital and cyber-physical systems incorporating VR, AR, motion capture, AI, dance and robotics. He is director of the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology.

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Director Statement

Tea Maze was conceived during the time of COVID-19 lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia, where residents experienced some of the highest number of days locked down in the world. Touring of performing arts shows came to a stand-still and the ability to present work both nationally and internationally took a long time to recover. Extremely intimate performance works like Yumi’s expanded tea ceremonies were particularly challenging because of the close intimacy of the audience and performer. John and Yumi began discussing volumetric capture as a way of allowing an audience to have an experience of Yumi’s performance work that was as close as possible to the live experience. Volumetric capture enabled us to capture Yumi’s performance spatially in three dimensions and time. By placing the captured performances in imaginary Virtual Reality environments, we have been able to create an immersive experience that is different from a typical cinematic experience and closer to the sensation of being there with Yumi’s characters.