DIRECT PATH TO DETOUR

Direct Path to Detour is a new dance work by Portland-based choreographer Takahiro Yamamoto. Grounded in the idea that a sense of who we are is rooted in our embodied experiences, this dance evokes mental and physical states at the intersection of value systems, social pressures, expectations, and personal experiences of four dancers.

Yamamoto’s Direct Path to Detour collaborators – performers, musician, and dramaturge – each have an intimate relationship with bridging multiple societies by birth, residence, upbringing and/or religion. Through light, sound, and movement, Direct Path to Detour envelops the performers in a poetic, visceral experience of resistance, surrender, sincerity, and fiction.

Direct Path to Detour began as a personal exploration of the physical and emotional effects of Yamamoto’s lived experience as a queer, Japanese immigrant in the United States. Additionally, he was interested in considering what happens when various sets of cultural values come into physical contact with one another and are forced to negotiate space. Yamamoto’s artistic and creative process retraces his biographical steps in a way that allows him the time and space to unpack his own influences—aesthetically, ethically, and ideologically.

CAST & CREW

Performed by Julian Barnett, Crystal Jiko Sasaki, sidony o’neal, and Takahiro Yamamoto.
Sound composed and performed by Jesse Mejía.
Dramaturgy by Lu Yim.
Costume design by Heather Treadway.
Lighting design by Jeff Forbes.

SUPPORT

Direct Path to Detour is supported by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN program. Direct Path to Detour is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by PICA (Portland Institute of Contemporary Art) in partnership with DiverseWorks, CAC Cincinnati and NPN. The Creation Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Ford Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts (a federal agency). More information at www.npnweb.org.

Direct Path to Detour’s presentation at DiverseWorks is supported by the National Performance Network/Visual Arts Network Performance Residency, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Texas Commission on the Arts, and the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance. DiverseWorks Season Sponsors: The Brown Foundation, Inc., the Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Houston Endowment, and the Wortham Foundation.