Rapeflower

In the solo Rapeflower, Hana Umeda uses the traditional Japanese dance form of jiutamai to tell a personal yet universal story of sexual violence – one of the most transcultural experiences shared by women regardless of their ethnic identity or geography.

At the same time, the artist looks at the violence inherent in this traditional technique. In the nineteenth century, jiutamai was performed exclusively by women who were not allowed to perform on stage. Instead, they appeared in so-called tea houses, in red-light districts, where clients came for private dance performances.

How to talk honestly about rape? How to situate one’s own experience between taboo and pornographization? Rapeflower is an investigation conducted within one’s own body. This experience of sexual violence – personal, inherited, and learned – intertwines with defence and survival strategies. It is something corporeal, not discursive. It is also a story about rape understood as a condition, not just a single event.

Patronage: Feminoteka

If you have been a victim of rape or any other form of sexual violence, you can receive free assistance at the Rape Crisis Centre run by the Feminoteka Foundation by calling: 888 88 33 88.

Hana Umeda is a performer, choreographer, theatre director, and graduate of the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw. In 2025, she graduated with distinction from the MA SODA programme at HZT Berlin (Inter-University Centre for Dance Berlin). A student of master Hanasaki Tokijyo, she is a certified jiutamai dancer and holds the rank of natori in the Hanasaki-ryu jiutamai school in Tokyo, where she took the name Sada Hanasaki in 2020.

In 2018, as a recipient of the Young Poland scholarship of the National Centre for Culture, she made her directorial debut with Sada Yakko, presented at Komuna Warszawa Theatre. Between 2021 and 2023, she was a member of the Centrum w Ruchu collective. In 2022, she won the first edition of the Scena New Situations Artistic Residency at Teatr Współczesny in Szczecin, as part of which she created Faithless. In 2023, her VR work Close was nominated for the IDFA DocLab Competition for Immersive Non-Fiction (IDFA DocLab: Phenomenal Friction, Amsterdam).

Her work has been presented at Cerulean Tower Noh Gakudo in Tokyo, Zero Base in Tokyo, Kunstbanken in Hamar, Norway, and at the IDFA Festival in Amsterdam.