The MACC Presents SOIL by Michael Sakamoto

The Maui Arts & Cultural Center presents a Maui debut for Michael Sakamoto and his dance theater work, SOIL. Sakamoto is self-described as a transdisciplinary artist active in dance, theater, performance, media art and photography. SOIL is a dance theater work he conceived utilizing various dance forms (Western contemporary, Cambodian classical, Thai traditional and folk, and butoh, a style of Japanese modern dance) juxtaposed and remixed in the experience of everyday life of three dancers. The performance is in the MACC’s Castle Theater Thursday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are on sale now.

SOIL was directed, co-written, and co-choreographed by Michael Sakamoto. The project was conceived through the personal narratives of three collaborators/performers: Cambodian classical and contemporary dancer, Chey Chankethya (“Kethya”), Thai traditional and contemporary dancer, Waewdao Sirisook, and Vietnamese-American contemporary dancer, Nguyen Nguyen. Lushly arranged dance and incidental music by Japanese koto and guitar duo, Reiko Imanishiand Shinichi Isohata, adds a cinematic energy to the intimate scale of the performers’ stories.

Referencing legacies of political conflict, war, genocide, and environmental destruction, Soil explores crisis in three Southeast Asian cultures and transnational, East-West identity through the dancers’ personal narrativesand choreography.

SOIL has been performed extensively but this will represent its Maui debut. The work was developed over several years with work-in-progress performances in Los Angeles, Bangkok and at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. Critics have taken notice of the work. The San Francisco Bay Guardian says Sakamoto creates expressionist theater that evokes the mysterious, the withering and the tongue-in-cheek.

Tickets are $35, $45 plus applicable fees and are available at the MACC Box Office, by phone at (808) 242-SHOW or online. MACC members receive a 10% discount and kids 12 and under are half price.