Push Pull Matters is a performing arts project that speaks about subtle expressions of cultural differences expressed through structures, bodies and tools. The audience will see a scenic structure/object, as an extended/expanded body, made of ropes, fishing nets and wooden sticks. The structure will dance with dancers’ bodies, and be assembled and disassembled during the performance by dancers. The project was conceived by Japanese dance artist Yohei Hamada and will be developed in collaboration with Norwegian dancer Katarina Skår Lisa and Finnish dancer Riina Kalmi in Norway and Sweden. The project aims to create a safe meeting space for the two streams of cultures, where the objects from the two cultures are used, or mis-used, as materials of the scenic construction, beyond the original usage and meanings.

The world premiere is planned at Norges Fiskerimuseum in August 2023.

Yohei Hamada (b. 1987) is a Bergen based dance artist from Japan, who holds MA Philosophy in the Graduate School of Yokohama National University. Besides his study, he learned dance by doing, both dancing for choreographers Ryohei Kondo and Toyo Matsubara and creating his own works. After a year of professional dance study in SEAD, Austria, he moved to Norway in 2018 and established his de-anthropocentric physicality and artistry, where his body is open to nature/surroundings and dances with objects, through his work as both dancer and choreographer.