Photo by Wm Johnston
A Body in Fukushima
A Gallery (Tanya Augoustinos, curator) and The Yard Present: A Body in Fukushima
(Artists: Eiko Otake and William Johnston)
May 25 - June 12
Artist reception June 5, 5-7pm
Location: A Gallery, Oak Bluffs
Eiko Otake's A Body in Places
Performances:
A Body in Edgartown
Friday, June 3 | 4pm | 43 Pennywise Path, E'town - limited parking!
Please call The Yard Office 508-645-9662 for directions and parking instructions.
A Body in Menemsha
Monday, June 6 | 6pm | Menemsha Beach
Free Events
An art exhibition accompanying A Body in Places, featuring Eiko and collaborating photographer and Japanese historian William Johnston in the abandoned town and landscape around the Daiichi nuclear plant in the irradiated zone of Fukushima, Japan.
A Body in Places is Eiko’s solo project. She goes to a place of her choice, studies the function, and characteristics of the place, and performs there alone without theatrical lights, music, or other conventions of performance venues. At the core of each variant is Eiko alone projecting and exploring solitude, gaze, fragility, and intimacy. Central to the project is a drive to make the distance between places malleable using her body as a conduit. In Eiko & Koma’s performances, two bodies represent drama even when the other was absent. A Body in Places does not offer such drama. Performing as a soloist, Eiko willfully partners with the particularities of places and viewers.
Born and raised in Japan, Eiko Otake is a New York-based movement artist, performer, and choreographer who for more than 40 years has worked as Eiko & Koma. Always performing their own choreography, Eiko & Koma usually design and handcraft all aspects of their works including sets, costumes and sound. Eiko & Koma were honored with two “Bessies,” double Guggenheim fellowships (1984), and the first United States Artists Fellowship (2006) and Doris Duke Artist Award (2012). They are the first collaborative pair to share a MacArthur Fellowship (1996) and the first Asian choreographers to receive the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004) as well as the Dance Magazine Award (2006). After Eiko & Koma’s Retrospective Project (2009-2012) and Archive Project( 2012-2013), Eiko has been directing and performing her first solo project, A Body in Places, which opened with A Body in a Station, twelve hour movement installation at Philadelphia Amtrak station in October 2014 and includes photo exhibition A Body in Fukushima. In February-March 2016, Eiko was the subject of the 10th annual PLATFORM titled A Body in Places, a month-long curated program of Danspace Project in New York City. The Platform included her daily solo, Talking Duet, Group of Soloists events, book club, film series, installations, public conversations, workshops, and 24-hour exhibition.
“The term site-specific tends to get tossed around, but Ms. Otake’s work is actually specific to its site, profoundly and urgently so.”
–Siobahn Burke, The New York Times
