SHAKESPEARE MEETS BUTOH IN HIDE YOUR FIRES: BUTOH LADY MACBETH

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 10, 2019

Japanese Butoh dance breathes new life into a tale of Lady Macbeth

Los Angeles, CA (May. 10, 2019) – Yokko, the Japanese Butoh and theatre artist, returns to Hollywood Fringe Festival this year with her new show, Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth. Yokko has been appearing in the Hollywood Fringe since 2013, and this is the 3rd season participating at this festival. Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth opens on Friday, June 7th, 2019 at The Lounge Theatre – Lounge 1 – 6201 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038.

Hide Your Fires: Butoh Lady Macbeth brings the audience alongside the accursed spirit of Lady Macbeth to experience her nightmare of stifled ambition, unfulfilled desire, and ultimate loss. Telling the story solely through her perspective, this production fuses Japanese Butoh dance, movement, and various texts to take you inside the mind and body of one of Shakespeare’s most famous villains.

Performed, Choreographed, and Concept: Yokko. Director: Brian Rhinehart. Text: Sean Michael Welch. Costume Design: Deepsikha Chatterjee. Sound Design: Jorge Olivo with RGS. Lighting Design Consultant: Derek Van Heel. Movement Consultant: Jordan Rosin.

WHERE: Lounge Theatre, 6201 Santa Monica Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90038

PERFORMANCE DATES:
Friday, June 7th @ 10 pm – Preview   This performance is pay what you can. Set your own price.
Saturday June 15th @ 6pm – $15
Wednesday June 19th @ 8pm – $12
Sunday June 23rd @ 2pm – $15

Running Time: 60 mins – ADMISSION: Age 16+

TICKETS PRICE: $15 hff19.org/4972

Yokko and her team have received eight awards through their last work, Butoh Medea: (Best One-Woman Show, Best Choreography, Best Lighting Design, Best Costume Design at United Solo 2014, Best Physical Theatre at United Solo 2015, Best Actress, Platinum Award at The TVolution 2018 Hollywood Fringe Award, Special Award at Thespis Festival, Kiel-Germany). Butoh Medea has been touring nationally and internationally since 2015. Meanwhile, the team has been developing the new show based on a story of Lady Macbeth and presented Hide Your Fires –excerpt- at NU WORKS festival with Pan Asian Rep last April. It premiered at United Solo 2017, and the team received four awards (Best Physical Theatre, Best Costume Design, Best Lighting Design, Best Sound Design).

ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Yokko (Performer, Choreographer, Concept) is an actor, a Butoh & Theatre artist from Japan. She has acted in, devised and choreographed a variety of local and international shows, having won several awards, including “Best One-Woman Show” for Butoh Medea (United Solo 2014 at Theatre Row). Butoh Medea was selected to perform in Warsaw, Poland. (United Solo Europe 2015, Teatre Syrena), toured Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2015, nominated The Asian Arts Award. She has been touring Butoh Medea nationally and internationally, which includes Atelier Teatro Fisico (Turin, Italy), MONOFEST’17 (Izmir, Turkey), Thespis Festival 2018 (Kiel, Germany), and Cheb Monodrama Festival 2019 (Prague, Czech) Other solo show: BALDY (United Solo 2013, HFF2013, FringeNYC 2012). Her choreographed work, SHINKA has been toured and received several awards (Capital Fringe 2017, Planet Connections 2018). Yokko acted in several of local and international films, one of which is the Student Academy Winner film, Cloud-Kumo (2016). Recently she has been appearing several music videos including Ready To Let Go (2019) – Cage The Elephant, AUSENCIAS (2019) – NOIA, and Dream Decay (2019) – POW! She is the artistic director of Ren Gyo Soh, a Butoh & Physical Theatre Company in NYC. Winner of Best Physical Theatre, Best Choreography (Butoh Medea, United Solo 2015, 2014). Outstanding Production & Outstanding Choreography (SHINKA, Planet Connections Festival 2018) A recipient of 2019 Brooklyn Arts Fund for her new project, EN. BA in Theatre (UAlbany), MFA in Acting (The Actors Studio). www.yokko-online.com

Brian Rhinehart (Director) is an actor, director, professor, and Fulbright scholar. An expert in devised theatre and collaborative playmaking, he has worked as a freelance theatre director in Florida and New York for the last nineteen years. He is also a critically acclaimed actor, who has performed in over fifty productions in New York, Germany, and Florida. The plays he has written or co-written have been seen in the New York International Fringe Festival and a variety of Off-Off Broadway venues. http://brianrhinehart.info

Sean Michael Welch (Text) was awarded the 1999 Kennedy Center / American College Theatre Festival John Cauble Short Play Award for Earl the Vampire and won the 2000 KC/ACTF Region III Ten-Minute Play Competition for Charleston’s Finger. Past productions of his work include Slab, Try Not to Step on the Naked Man, Rise Up You Bloody Animals, All an Act, Staged Reading, and Boise, Idaho. His published work includes Earl the Vampire (Samuel French, 2000), Boise, Idaho (Zoetrope: All-Story, 2000 and Playscripts, Inc., 2012), and Try Not to Step on the Naked Man (Zoetrope: All-Story, 2002). His play All An Act premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2012. His novel 1897: Aliens! Zombies! Vampires! was released in 2015.

Comps available for members of the press upon request. Please contact Yokko: [email protected]

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