Takao Baba & Bounracksa Phomkhoumphon: Die Gelbe Seite

In the organizer's words:

World premiere

An urban dance performance for everyone aged 14 and over.

In The Yellow Page, Takao Baba and Bounracksa Phomkhoumphon bring martial arts and urban dance culture together in a stage production. Based on the movement qualities of martial arts such as Muay Thai, Jiu-Jitsu, Karate and ritual practices such as Wai Khru, they pose the question of the development potential of certain urban dances.
The two artists look at the field of martial arts with their personal code of values and repertoire of movements and examine the historical origins of urban dance cultures. As these are often rooted in African-American culture, they deal with the associated question of their own role, identity and biography. These are shaped by their own Southeast/East Asian family history as well as their daily work and involvement with urban dance cultures.
The Yellow Page artistically and aesthetically realizes this personal-biographical confrontation on stage: In a social context characterized by racism and clichéd notions of Asian-diasporic life in Germany, Takao Baba and Bounracksa Phomkhoumphon reclaim the power to tell their own story. The dancers examine and explore facets of Asian culture within urban dance and, with an age difference of 14 years, look at these themes from different generations.

Takao Baba was born in Tokyo (Japan) in 1974, grew up in Germany and lives in Düsseldorf. The roots of his work lie in urban dance, which he combines with contemporary dance. Takao Baba founded the dance company EMotion in 2003, which regularly develops dance theater productions. In 2008, it was the first urban dance company to be invited to the German Dance Platform with the production 2nd ID. The most recent children's production Boys don't dance was invited to the Augenblick Mal festival and the Westwind Festival. Since 2010, he has also worked as a choreographer for Urbanatix, a project that brings young street art talents together with international artists every year. Takao curated the urban dance section of the international dance fair NRW 2018. Takao has a long-standing and continuous collaboration with tanzhaus nrw.

Bounracksa Phomkhoumphon is an urban dancer with Laotian roots and is known under the stage name Bouni. His artistic work is mainly concerned with urban dance styles, in which he has increasingly specialized. He has been gaining experience as an urban dance artist in various stage productions since 2007. He gained his first impressions through youth productions at tanzhaus nrw, such as Battle your own live under the choreographic direction of Guido Markowitz and Damian Gmuer and t(h)ree of life under the choreographic direction of Nora Pfahl and Karl Kane Wung. For many years he toured with the international ensemble Urbanatix and performed at the Jahrhunderthalle in Bochum. Thanks to the artistic funding formats Performance Session and Now & Next at tanzhaus nrw, he was able to perform his first solo piece The Anthropomorph on stage at tanzhaus nrw as part of the Urban Double Bill.

Duration: 75 min.
Age recommendation 14+
In German, Japanese and Laotian. With surtitles.

Please send ticket inquiries for school performances to Maresa Grote-Sinn: mgrote-sinn@tanzhaus-nrw.de
Other visitors are also welcome to attend the school screenings.

Supporting program
Sat 02.12.followed by a talk