The Philharmonic Society of Orange County

The West Coast Festival begins with a mesmerizing performance of modern Japanese Butoh dance entitled "Hibiki - Resonance from Far Away" by the internationally acclaimed Japanese Butoh troupe Sankai Juku. In this unique and award-winning Butoh, dancers use slow hyper-controlled motion to display playful imagery.

Immerse yourself in a dream landscape: a group of six dancers, clothed in draping costumes, begin in the fetal position, unfurl like lotus flowers, and begin a delicate slow dance of unparalleled simplicity and poetic beauty. The interplay of large and small gestures creates a potent, hypnotic environment of image, sound, and performance.

Created by director, choreographer, designer and Sankai Juku founder Ushio Amagatsu, Hibiki first premiered at Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, in 1998, and received the Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production in 2002.

"[Ushio Amagatsu] conveys the infinitely minute yet spellbinding transformations of a world in constant metamorphosis."- Dance Magazine p>

This engagement is supported by the Japan Foundation through the Performing Arts JAPAN program and was funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

For the 2010 North American Tour, Sankai Juku is supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of the Government of Japan with in-kind support from Shiseido.