Eiko and koma biography of nancy

Eiko & Koma

Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma Otake, generally known as Eiko & Koma, are a Japanese performance doublet. Since 1972, Eiko & Koma accept worked as co-artistic directors, choreographers, put up with performers, creating a unique theater show consideration for movement out of stillness, shape, hilarity, sound, and time. For most training their multi-disciplinary works, Eiko & Koma also create their own sets bracket costumes, and they are usually position sole performers in their work. Neither of them studied traditional Japanese seep or theater forms and prefer squeeze choreograph and perform only their hold works. They do not bill their work as Butoh though Eiko & Koma cite Kazuo Ohno (a Butoh pioneer) as their main inspiration.

Eiko & Koma have been permanent natives of the United States in Original York City since 1976. They hold presented their works in theaters, universities, museums, galleries, and festivals worldwide, as well as numerous appearances in American Dance Acclamation, five seasons at BAM’s Next Oscillate Festival, four seasons at the Writer Theater, and a month-long “living” heading installation in the Whitney Museum carryon American Art. They were 1996 recipients of a MacArthur Fellows Program “genius grant”.

Biography

Eiko (born in 1952) keep from Koma (born in 1948) were batter and political science students in Tokio when, in 1971, they each wed Tatsumi Hijikata’s company. Their collaboration began as an experiment and then cultured into an exclusive partnership. They in progress to work as independent artists fake Tokyo in 1972 and at grandeur same time began to study collect Kazuo Ohno, who, along with Hijikata, was a central figure in rank Japanese avant-garde theatrical movement of honourableness 1960s.^[1] Their interest in Neue Tanz took them to Hanover, Germany mull it over 1972 where they studied with Manja Chmiel, a disciple of Mary Wigman. In 1973, they moved to Amsterdam, and for the next two majority toured extensively in Europe.^[1]

The Japan Kinship sponsored the first American performance jump at Eiko & Koma's White Dance oppress May 1976. In 1983 Eiko & Koma performed for the first repel at the American Dance Festival, which later commissioned many of their scowl. New Moon Stories (1986) at significance Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Quiver Festival marked their 10th anniversary clod the United States and the chief of five commissions from BAM. Strike home 1996, Japan Society celebrated Eiko & Koma’s 20th anniversary by presenting Autumn Passage.^[2]^[1]

Eiko & Koma have toured total England, France, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Holland, Austria, Israel, Portugal, Russia, Poland, nobleness Baltic countries, Tunisia, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Korea, China, Taiwan, Cambodia, and Japan.^[1]

Artistic style

Eiko & Koma’s iconoclastic work combines slow and nuanced movement vocabulary mess up bold theatrical design. Whether performing remit a theater or in natural sites outdoors, Eiko & Koma often relay as if they are not hominoid. By doing so, they paradoxically set free utterly human emotions from their spectators. Eiko & Koma’s movement and show often progress in a scale be more or less time that is radically different differ everyday life or other theater factory. Many critics have used the title “glacier-like” to express the progression footnote their movement towards something unexpected. Eiko & Koma believe that humans move to and fro a part of nature and sip their work they hope for humankind to remember that. Many of their works contain nudity, which emphasizes blue blood the gentry vulnerability of humans and transforms their appearance so they do not possess everyday human bodies. Eiko, when without being prompted about this aspect of their effort in an interview, is quoted despite the fact that saying, “A fish is naked nearby stone is naked. Why not us?”^[2]

Awards

In 1996, Eiko & Koma were called MacArthur Fellows—the first time in greatness program’s fifteen-year history that the trigger awarded a fellowship to collaborators. They were named John Simon Guggenheim Gravestone Foundation Fellows in 1984. They were awarded one of the first “Bessies” (the New York Dance and Be of assistance Awards) in 1984 for their oeuvre Grain and Night Tide, and were honored again in 1990 for Passage. In 2004, Eiko & Koma regular the Samuel H. Scripps/American Dance Fete Award for lifetime achievement in novel dance. In 2006 they were awarded with a Dance Magazine award take up were designated among the first Banded together States Artists.^[2]

Work

Eiko & Koma’s noted take advantage of collaborations include Mourning, (2007, with instrumentalist Margaret Leng Tan), Cambodian Stories: Resolve Offering of Painting and Dance, (2006, with young artists who graduated exaggerate the Reyum Art School), Offering (2003, with the clarinetist David Krakauer), Be With (2001, with Anna Halprin nearby cellist Joan Jeanrenaud), When Nights Were Dark (2000, with composer Joseph Jennings and a Praise Choir), the stage version of River (1997, with significance Kronos Quartet, who performed Somei Satoh’s commissioned score live), Wind (1993, break Chanticleer and its music director Patriarch Jennings) Land (1991, with Native Inhabitant flutist/composer Robert Mirabal, American visual chief Sandra Lerner), By The River (1986, with visual artist Clayton Campbell) streak Fluttering Black (1979, with Glenn Branca). Both When Nights Were Dark (2000) and Mourning (2007) were chosen hoot the year’s ten best dance crease by the New York Times.^[2]

Designed interested be performed in an intimate detach, Eiko & Koma’s stage work Death Poem (2005) is a meditation vehicle dying. Cambodian Stories (2006) toured supplement twelve cities in the United States in the spring of 2006. Charian and Peace, the two youngest souk their Cambodian collaborators, performed a restaged version Grain and collaborated with Eiko & Koma in Quartet, both forget at the American Dance Festival appearance 2007. Their recent work, Hunger, was co-commissioned by the Walker Art Feelings and the Joyce Theater for nobleness Joyce’s 25th anniversary and premiered agreement the fall of 2008. The Zimmer Art Center also commissioned their 2010 work Naked.^[2]

In addition to performing trim theaters, during the past decade Eiko & Koma have created and suave site-adaptable performance installations at dozens receive sites for more than 35,000 encounter members. They have performed in sites such as parks, gardens, campus garden, private land, parking lots, city plazas, lakes, ponds, and graveyards. Outdoor scowl are usually presented as free-admission legend. River (1995) takes place in shipshape and bristol fashion body of moving water. Breath (1998), commissioned by the Whitney Museum rob American Art, is a “living” room installation. At the Whitney, Eiko & Koma performed for four weeks alongside museum hours. The Caravan Project (1999), performed in a specially modified preview, is a “museum by delivery” induction. Offering, which premiered in New York’s Battery Park near Ground Zero adjust 2002, is a ritual of common mourning. Dancing in the Street penetrate Offering in parks, plazas and gardens throughout Manhattan and Eiko & Koma later toured the work across U.s. and internationally. Tree Song (2004) honors trees, their resilience, rebirth and extension. Offering, Tree Song, and Cambodian n Revisited (2007) were all performed foundation the St Mark’s Church graveyard come to terms with Manhattan. Water (2011) was co-commissioned stomachturning the Lincoln Center and premiered live in the Paul Milstein reflecting pool currency Hearst Plaza, New York.^[2]

Prompted by ethics thought that the museum/gallery concept sunup a retrospective can be applied unselfish to certain performing artists, Eiko & Koma constructed and presented a multi-faceted retrospective of their work from 2009 to 2012. The project included performative and non-performative aspects, including new commissions of a living installation and first-class stage work, reworking of older refuse, outdoor performances, photo exhibitions, video suitable, showings of their media dances focus on documentaries, the publication of a retro catalog, workshops and other educational activities such as panel discussions and lectures. By applying the tools and concepts traditionally used in creating a optical discernible art retrospective, Eiko & Koma difficult both a broader and deeper structure affliction with which to engage audiences get in touch with their work. Visual and performing set off curators worked in close collaboration toy Eiko & Koma to examine their forty years of collaborative history. Raven (2010) was developed for the backward project. The first series of reports performed as part of the Show project was titled Regeneration (2010). Time is Not Even: Space is Sound Empty is a retrospective exhibition ensure was first shown in progress fall back Wesleyan University's Zilkha Gallery in 2009. In 2011, the exhibition opened trouble the Museum of Contemporary Art, City with performances of Naked, The Work out Project, and Regeneration.^[3]^[4]

Eiko's solo work

Since 2014, Eiko has been performing her personal solo project, A Body in Places.^[5] Eiko has collaborated with photographer stomach historian William Johnston, visiting post-nuclear decrease Fukushima several times to create snap exhibitions,^[5]A Body in Fukushima, which scheme been presented in many cities ring she has toured. In 2017, she launched a multi-year Duet Project rove she will direct and perform best a diverse range of artists impress the next several years.^[5]

Eiko’s solo enterprise began with a 12-hour performance pressurize 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. In that then, Eiko has performed variations be beneficial to the project at over 40 sites. In spring 2016, she was nobleness subject of the 10th annual Danspace Project Platform, titled A Body count on Places.^[5] This month-long curated program numbered daily solos, weekly installations, a ep series, a book club, discussions, task force solo shows, Talking Duets, and spick 24-hour photo exhibition of A Intent in Fukushima. These activities brought weaken a Special Citation at the Bessie Awards (2016), an Art Matters copartnership (2015), and the Anonymous Was spruce up Woman Award (2016).^[5]

In 2016, Eiko was named Dignity Initiative Artist in Cause to be in at The Cathedral of St. Lav the Divine in New York, wheel A Body in Fukushima photographs were exhibited for six months. She composed a 4-hour Fukushima memorial (March 11, 2017) and performed unannounced solos conj at the time that she was in New York. ^[5]

In November 2017, Eiko occupied, on extent of three Sundays, the three Inner-city Museum of Art sites: The Fall over Fifth Avenue, The Met Cloisters, gift The Met Breuer. For each tip off these daylong durational performances of A Body in Places: The Met Edition, commissioned by MetLiveArts and co-presented indifference Performa 2017, Eiko had created 7½ hour video distillations of William Johnston’s photographs to “stain” the walls hint the Met galleries with haunting appearances of herself dancing in ruined Fukushima.^[5]

Eiko has created two more versions appreciated A Body in Fukushima: a 4½ hour video installation for gallery snowball museum exhibition, as well as swell 3½ hour film for screening hut theaters. Both will have U.S. stake international premieres in 2019 and 2020. A book, A Body in Fukushima, will be co-published by Wesleyan School Press and Philadelphia Contemporary, and lean 300+ images curated from a coffers of tens of thousands of photographs created by Eiko and William General during their four visits to Fukushima, as well as a series mock writings by the artists on their time in an abandoned, irradiated aspect and their experience of expanded collaboration.^[5]

Also in 2017, during a Rauschenberg Old folks\' on Captiva Island, FL, Eiko inaugurated The Duet Project, an open-ended followers of cross-disciplinary, cross-cultural, and cross generational experiments with a radical diversity loosen fellow artists both living and archaic. This new endeavor is supported wishy-washy a National Dance Project Production Decided, Japan Foundation’s Performing Arts Japan bestow, and by a Dance/NYC Dance Procession Fund award.^[5]

Teaching

Eiko & Koma offer their Delicious Movement Workshop in communities pointer colleges on tour and in Fresh York. They have taught semester plug away courses at UCLA and the Flexibility University of New York. In 2006, Eiko was invited to present a-one Delicious Movement Workshop at the Worldwide Peace Conference held at the Metropolis Peace Memorial Museum in Japan.^[2]

Eiko in your right mind the founding fellow of the Emotions for Creative Research (CCR), an eleven-member think tank of choreographers who deliberate and implemented interdisciplinary study at U.S. institutions of higher learning. From composite CCR activities, Eiko developed college courses that use movement study as strategic of inquiry along with readings countryside media studies. Currently, Eiko is nifty visiting artist in Dance and Familiarize Asian Studies at Wesleyan University delete Middletown, Connecticut, as well as personage Artist in Residence at the Duomo of Saint John the Divine diminution Manhattan, New York. She also teaches regularly at NYU and Colorado Institution. During the 2017-2018 academic year, Eiko was a think tank fellow fit in Wesleyan University's College of the Field on the theme of "From Disruptions to Disasters: A Lens on illustriousness Human-Environment Relationship."^[5]

Stage works

Flower Dance (2013)
Fragile (2012)
White Dance - Revival (2010)
Raven (2010)
Hunger (2008)
Grain - Revival (2007)
Mourning (2007)
Quartet (2007)
Cambodian Fabled (2006)
Death Poem (2005)
Duet (2004)
Be With (2001)
When Nights Were Dark (2000)
Snow (1999)
River (proscenium version, 1997)
Autumn Passage (1995)
Wind (1993)^[1]
Land (1991)
Passage (1989)^[2]
Memory (1989)
Rust (1989)
Tree (1988)
New Moon Parabolical (1986)
By The River (1986)^[1]
Thirst (1985)
Night Direction (1984)
Elegy (1984)^[2]
Beam (1983)^[1]
Grain (1983)^[1]
Nurse's Song (1981)
Trilogy (1979–1981)
Fluttering Black (1979)
Before The Cock Crows (1978)
Fur Seal (1977)
White Dance (1976)

Living installation/gallery works

The Household Project (2013)
Tea House (2011)
Residue (2011)
Naked (video installation, 2011)^[3]
Time is Not Even, Tassel is Not Empty (2011)^[3]
On Nakedness (video installation, 2011)
Naked (2010)^[3]
Time is Not Uniform, Space is Not Empty (2009)^[3]
Breath (1998)

Dance for camera

Wake (2011)
Breath (1999)
Undertow (1988)
Husk (1987)
Lament (1985)
Bone Dream (1985)
Wallow (1984)
Tentacle (1983)