Experience 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.
Known for her deeply embodied, place-responsive performances, Eiko engages each site with careful attention — arriving in a community, spending time with its people and spaces, and developing a response that is both choreographic and poetic. Each performance is unrepeatable, shaped by and inseparable from the particularities of the site, day, and audience.
Eiko writes that she strives "to be radically available to be seen and to be heard" by diverse audiences. Everyone is welcome — those who seek it out and those who simply find themselves there. Come and witness.
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