AnxieTEA: PopUp Tearoom Series

By Yumi Umiumare

September 23, 2017

Yumi Umiumare’s PopUp Tearoom Series offers various experiences through the ritual of tea ceremonies, installation, and performance.

Audiences are invited to sit and have a bowl of green tea in Umiumare’s pop-up performances. The inspiration for this performance piece came from the traditional Japanese tea-ceremony room, which has a small doorway which requires people to bow to enter and exit. This symbolises the fact that all people are born from, and return to, the same place. The samurai of the medieval period had to leave their sword behind to participate in the ceremony, stripping back the experience to the bare essence of being and soul.

As long ago as the 16th century, tearooms were created in war zones, with the tea ceremony functioning to relieve emotional stress and restore social order. The deep sense of presence and silence afforded by the Tearoom offers participants time to pause and reflect amongst our busy life and daily rituals.

For Eco-Anxiety, Yumi will explore the concept of ‘AnxieTEA’, through various tea ceremony rituals, creating elements between the anxious and calm, sacred and profane, serious and absurdly funny.

Header image by Vikk Shayen

About Yumi Umiumare

Yumi Umiumare is an established Butoh dancer and choreographer. The Australian artist, born in Hyogo, Japan, has been creating her distinctive style of work for over 25 years renowned for provoking visceral emotions and exploring cultural identities. Umiumare’s works have been performed in numerous international festivals, and in dance, theatre, and film productions. She has worked with many socially engaged theatre projects in Australia with aboriginal communities, refugees, culturally diverse people, and a company of people with and without disability. Umiumare has choreographed a work for the Japan Contemporary Dance Network, and was the recipient of an Australian Council for the Arts fellowship (2015-16).