Hana Umeda: Rapeflower

Lees in het Nederlands

How long does it take to unfreeze a raped body?

Identifying ourselves as survivors, we often choose silence. We resist the victim label being projected onto our living bodies. Unwilling to become objects of pity, we render ourselves invisible. Yet, by avoiding confrontation with the experience of rape, we risk trapping ourselves in a cycle of repetition—re-enacting aspects of the trauma in a desperate search for lost control. 

Rape is one of the most transcultural phenomena shared by women regardless of their ethnic identity or latitude. It is a weapon that turns a person into an object.

How can we speak honestly about rape? How do we navigate our own experiences between the tabooization and pornographization of this subject? RAPEFLOWER is an investigation conducted within the body itself. It is in the body—not in discourse—that the experience of sexual violence, whether personal, inherited, or learned, intertwines with defense mechanisms and survival strategies. This is a story about rape understood not as a single event, but as a condition. 

RAPEFLOWER is an investigation that takes place in Umedas own body. It is the body, not the discourse, in which the experience of sexual violence—one’s own, inherited, and learned—is interwoven with defense mechanisms and survival strategies. This is a story about rape understood not as a single event, but as a condition.

How can the practice of classical Japanese jiutamai dance contribute to this exploration? Is it a form of liberation, or does it perpetuate oppression? Or perhaps both? In RAPEFLOWER, Hana Umeda draws on the traditions of this 19th-century art form, performed exclusively by women in Japan. For many of these women, dance was inseparable from the experience of violence—confined to small rooms and subjected to sexual abuse during closed performances. The movement, the tension of the body, its confinement and freezing, were all emphasized by jiutamai masters as they passed their knowledge to the next generation of female dancers. 

In Roman legend, Lucretia, after being raped by Sextus Tarquinius, takes her own life, becoming a symbol of female virtue for centuries. Today, her death might be interpreted as a consequence of PTSD. In contrast, the Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi, who repeatedly depicted Lucretia in her work, processed her own rape trauma through artistic creation, becoming one of the first recognized female painters in European art history. 

Can the stage—where I place my raped body on public display, speaking in my own voice while embodying the collective experiences of generations of dancers—become a space for liberation?