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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Events NYC | Eiko & Koma: Moving to Stillness

Dance is often thought as movement; usually as a series of movements performed by dancers on a stage in front of an audience. In modern, and even more so, in contemporary dance, the traditional setting of a dance performance are often challenged. This is definitely true for "Naked: A Living Installation". The title itself signs a departure from the traditional dance performance. Stillness and the relationship with time is one the main experiences evoked by this work by the Japanese-born artists Eiko & Koma. I believe that the definition "artists" ---as comprehensive of many forms of expression and media--- is more appropriate than dancers. Although the body is the main, but not only, expression medium in Eiko & Koma work.
So the performance setting is not typical of "dance": canvas enclosures with feathers, hair, straw. Holes are punched in the canvas allowing the viewer to peek into the performance space, where Eiko & Koma lie naked, with their body painted white. There is an almost complete absence of movement and the viewer is induced by the stillness almost in a meditative state.

Naked studio shot: photo by Anna Lee Campbell


"Naked" was created for and commissioned by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, where it premiered in 2010.
It will be on view at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC) through Saturday, April 09, 2011
For more information visit Eiko & Koma site