In an age dominated by digital media, Tea Universe asks a simple but powerful question: can technology help us feel more connected to culture, ritual and each other? Through the shared experience of tea, immersive virtual reality and live performance, audiences are invited to step outside the everyday and into a world of reflection, transformation and imagination. Created through a collaboration between artists, researchers and technologists, Tea Universe offers a rare opportunity to experience how art and technology can work together to create meaningful human experiences rather than simply digital ones.
– John McCormick (Director of the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies)
The Way of Tea is a passage, a journey. I drink tea every day and repeat the “same” things, yet each time they unfold into something deeper, something different. Tea drinking unfolds.
Tea heals you. Matcha gives us an antioxidant boost!
Tea bankrupts you. Matcha is booming, but Sencha is dying. Tea companies are collapsing, hitting a record high in bankruptcies.
Tea kills you. Two great tea masters were ordered to be killed. Highly spiritual. Highly calm. They annoyed the power at the top, the Shoguns.
Tea saves your life. Tea ceremony practice. A ritual of pure offering. Something we deeply miss in our lives now. Tea certainly saved my life.
Thank you for being here to witness the journey of TEA UNIVERSE!
– Yumi Umiumare — Creator of the show www.yumi.com.au
TEA TRANCE お茶酔い
Tea. Ritual. Hallucination. Dance And 3D.
An immersive evening performance blending Butoh, tea ceremony and 3D into an intoxicating sensory adventure. Through live performance, Yumi Umiumare invites audiences to enter the alchemy of dance, tea and spirit through classical and contemporary rituals, playful disruption, and surreal transformation.
Building on themes first explored in Yumi Umiumare’s acclaimed performance work, Buried TeaBowl – OKUNI, the work represents a new manifestation of Yumi’s exploration of dance, tea and spirit.
Following international touring to Europe and USA, this new iteration of TEA TRANCE お茶酔い has emerged through a collaboration with the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University.
CREATIVE TEAM
Created and Performed: Yumi Umiumare
Cinematographer/ Editor: Takeshi Kondo
Composer/ Sound Designer: Dan West
Costume designer: Yumi Umiumare and Kiki Ando
Stereo 3D component: Centre for Transformative Media Technologies, Casey Richardson and music by by Ai Yamamoto
Production & Stage Manager: Celina Mack
Lighting and Video operator: Casey Richardson and Haydon Bakker
TEA MAZE お茶の迷路
An intimate VR experience with matcha and Japanese sweet.
Created by Japanese-Australian performance maker Yumi Umiumare in collaboration with the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies, TEA MAZE お茶の迷路 opens a magical portal through the simple act of drinking tea.
Entangling tea ceremony and old-world Kabuki mystique with volumetric capture 3D performance, this intimate VR experience summons the sacred power of female archetypes and deities. Each audience member is invited to enter a contemplative world of tea, ritual and immersive technology, experiencing the work with a bowl of matcha and a Japanese sweet.
Punk, playful and exuberant, TEA MAZE お茶の迷路 is a profanely sacred ritual that invites an audience revolt of the spirit.
CREDITS
Creator / Performer: Yumi Umiumare
Director/Producer: John McCormick
Creative Director/Digital Artist: Casey Richardson
Digital Artist: Emrys McFerran
Composition and Sound Design: Ai Yamamoto, Dan West
Volumetric Research Lead: Kim Vincs
This project started in 2022, initially funded by Creative Australia.
This project is supported by the City of Boroondara and Rotary Club of Balwyn through the Community Strengthening Grant.
TEA UNIVERSE THANKS
The staff members of Centre for Transformative Media Technologies: Haydon Bakker, Adam Carr, Casey Richardson, Josh Reason, Casey Dalbo, Emrys McFerran
Naomi Ota for visual installation materials
Volunteers: Anna Shanahan, David Kemp, Jessie Monk, Rara Sato, Susie Kim