Hiroaki Umeda is a choreographer and a multidisciplinary artist now recognized as one of the leading figures of the Japanese avant-garde art scene. Since the launch of his company S20, his subtle yet violent dance pieces have toured around the world to the audience and critical acclaim. His work is acknowledged for the highly holistic artistic methodology with the strong digital background, which considers not only physical elements as dance, but also optical, sonal, sensorial and, above all, spatiotemporal components as part of the choreography. Based on his profound interest in choreographing time and space, Umeda has spread his talent not only as a choreographer and dancer but also as a composer, lighting designer, scenographer and visual artist.

 

 

The performance contains the following two parts.

 

By intricately designing the strength, the brightness, the speed and the refracting angle of lights, Umeda skillfully shifts the visual recognition of the audiences. In this piece, the texture of the dance movements changes in accordance with the layout of lights, that shifts slightly from one temporal segment to the other. In one section, a violent oscillation of arms gain velocity in the serenely fading light; or, the kinetic movement of the dancer's body mechanically halts when suddenly exposed to a radiant light. 'The light and the move go hand in hand to compose various stimulation patterns,' says Umeda.

 

With the passage of time, these stimulation patterns gradually accumulate within the audiences' bodies: infusing in them ineffaceable residual images.

 

 

In his previous work Accumulated Layout; Umeda affirmed that physical textures on stage could be perceived differently depending on the delicate articulation of lights, even if the actual body movements are exactly the same. Continuing on with this optical experiment, Umeda further explores the possibilities of human visual recognition. On the floor, on the screen and on the left and right half of the dancer's body, numerous lines moving in different speed and in various directions are portrayed through multiple projectors.

 

In this geometric space, the myriad of lines crisscross and flicker—horizontally, vertically and diagonally—which ends up in generating a distorted vision of the dancer's body from the optical illusion. For example, in reverse proportion to the expansion of space between grid lines projected on the screen, the dancer's body miniaturizes; or, in accordance with the size shift of the grid pattern projected on the body, the perspective of the background is distorted. The title indicates the 'double illusion' specific to the human vision.

 

 

In order to get on with our everyday life efficiently, human eyes often adjust the actual reality to a comprehensible reality. However, precisely because of this adjusting function, the reality becomes physically biased. That is, humans recognize a distorted reality by correcting the numerous distortions in reality. In this piece, various optical illusion patterns are used in order to render this complex receptive process and, to develop an experience that speaks to the audiences' neuronal recognition systems. Do human eyes perceive the correct reality, or, rather, is everything an illusion? The exactitude of human visual recognition is challenged.