Movement as Witness

a weekend with Eiko Otake

This June, Eiko Otake comes to Delaware County for a rare weekend of performance, film, movement, and conversation.

Presented across Bushel Collective, Woodland Cemetery, and Pillow Fort Arts Center, the weekend offers multiple ways to experience Eiko’s work — from intimate conversation and political reflection to site-specific performance and embodied practice.

The weekend begins at Bushel Collective with a screening of No Rule Is Our Rule (2022), a deeply personal video diary of friendship and collaboration between Eiko and Chinese choreographer Wen Hui. Eiko grew up in postwar Japan; Wen Hui came of age during China’s Cultural Revolution. The two artists explore the political histories, personal memories, and body memories each willingly carries.

The following day, witness Eiko’s hauntingly still, ferociously alive movement as she inhabits the histories, energies, and terrain of Woodland Cemetery in a free, one-time outdoor performance.

The weekend concludes with a Delicious Movement workshop at Pillow Fort Arts Center, where you can learn directly from Eiko Otake. Through imagery and largely slow movement, Eiko guides participants to develop a personal taste for their own moving body in a supportive, exploratory environment. All are welcome; no dance training required. Space is limited; pre-registration is encouraged

Come for one event or spend the full weekend with us — each offers a different way into Eiko’s work and world.

See here for full schedule of events and more details.

Born and raised in Japan and a resident of New York since 1976, Eiko Otake is a movement-based, interdisciplinary artist. She worked for more than 40 years as Eiko & Koma performing their own choreography which earned them Guggenheim, MacArthur, and United States Artists Fellowships, as well as the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival and the Dance Magazine Awards.

Since 2014, Eiko has been directing her own projects. She has performed a series of site-specific solo work, A Body in Places at over 76 sites. In 2016, Eiko was the subject of the 10th annual Danspace Platform, a month-long curated program that brought her a Special Bessies Citation, an Art Matters Grant, and the Anonymous Was a Woman Award. A Body in Fukushima records Eiko‘s solo performances in post-nuclear disaster Fukushima, Japan. The project has produced a book publication, a feature-length film as well as numerous photo exhibitions, lectures, and performances. In 2017, Eiko launched her multi-year Duet Project, a mutable and evolving series of experiments in collaborations. She has worked with artists David Harrington, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Wen Hui, Joan Jonas, DonChristian Jones, Iris McCloughan, Beverly McIver, Mérian Soto, Wen Hui, and her late grandfather, Chikuha Otake. Her 10-year project, I Invited Myself, is a series of exhibitions and screenings of her media works. Her short and feature-length films have been screened in many film festivals internationally. www.eikootake.org