“Otake’s oeuvre reflects upon finality through a continuous invocation of the power, passion, and transient performance of life.” —Denver Art Review
Eiko Otake’s (Eiko and Koma) austere, haunting movement work has often commemorated death, time, and place. Joining forces with radical dance-theater artist Wen Hui (Living Dance Studio), she returns to the Walker to premiere a poignant new work forged through deep collaboration.
In January 2020, Eiko visited Wen Hui in China for a month. The pandemic obliged the artists to continue their dialogue at a distance. In the process of co-creating an award-winning feature length documentary film No Rule Is Our Rule, the artists began examining the personal memories they hold in their bodies. That quest led them to work together physically in the U.S. to co-create the new performance work What Is War.
What Is War, commissioned by the Walker, explores how both performers’ lives have been affected by war—Otake grew up in postwar Japan and Wen in China during the Cultural Revolution. Together, the collaborators embody fierceness tempered by emotional honesty. Their formidable performance combines movement, text, and video as it excavates personal memories of war and its global resonances.
Eiko Otake & Wen Hui: What Is War
Friday–Saturday, April 11–12, 7:30 pm
McGuire Theater
Tickets start at $15
ABOUT EIKO OTAKE
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 part of the duo Eiko & Koma, but since 2014 has been working on her own projects. Eiko & Koma created numerous performance works, exhibitions, durational “living” installations, and media works commissioned by American Dance Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others.
The Retrospective Project (2009–2012, produced by Sam Miller) culminated in two exhibitions, screenings of media works and a comprehensive monograph, Time is Not Even Space is Not Empty, published by the Walker Art Center. Eiko has performed her solo project A Body in Places at over 70 sites, including a month-long Danspace Project PLATFORM (2016) and three full-day performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017). Collaboratively created with photographer and historian William Johnston, A Body in Fukushima (2014–) is a multifaceted project that records Eiko‘s solo performances in post-nuclear disaster Fukushima. It consists of photo exhibitions, video installations, mix-media performances, lectures, a book publication, and a feature-length film that has been screened at festivals internationally. The Duet Project (2017–) is a series of experiments with artists of different disciplines, races, genders and generations. The project has produced performances and media works, including feature length documentary No Rule is Our Rule, collaboratively created with Wen Hui. Eiko is currently working on her 10-year project, I Invited Myself (2022–), a series of exhibitions and screenings of her media works.
A recipient of an honorary degree from Colorado College (2020), she teaches at Wesleyan University, New York University, and Colorado College.
ABOUT WEN HUI
Chinese choreographer, dancer, filmmaker, and installation artist Wen Hui has used dance theater as a means of social interventions for the past thirty years. Since 2008, she has been researching the body as a form of personal social documentation and experimenting with how bodily memory catalyzes collision between history and reality.
Wen Hui graduated from the Beijing Dance Academy in 1989, followed by modern dance studies across the United States and Europe in the 1990s. In 1994, Wen Hui co-founded the first independent dance theater group in China, Living Dance Studio. Wen Hui’s work and that of the Living Dance Studio have been invited to perform at the most provocative stages and festivals internationally. Her two films, Dance with Third Grandmother and Dance with Farm Workers, were shown in the Chinese Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Dance Only Exists When It Is Performed is a set of two solo exhibitions featuring Yvonne Rainer and Wen Hui at the Beijing inside-out Art Museum in 2019. And her exhibition, The Arts Of Memory, was shown at the Guangzhou Image Triennial in 2021. Wen Hui’s solo work, I am 60, was presented at Festival d’Automne in Paris and at the 2021 Ruhrtriennale in Germany. Her newest work, New Report on Giving Birth (2023), was also presented at the Festival d’Automne in Paris, the Dance Festival in Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, HELLERAU European Art Center in Dresden, and at PACT Zollverein in Essen. In 2004, her Report on Body won the ZKB Patronage Prize by Zürcher Theater Spektakel. In 2021, Wen Hui received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, known as the Goethe Medal.
TICKETS
Ordering tickets is easy: visit walkerart.org/tickets or call 612.375.7600. Prices include all applicable fees. Box Office is open Wednesday–Sunday and one hour before performances.
ACCESSIBILITY AND CONTENT NOTES
Audio description (AD) is planned for the Friday performance. Please click here to purchase AD seats.
This performance contains nudity and themes of war.
For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.
For questions on accessibility, content and sensory notes, or to request additional accommodations, call 612-253-3556 or email access@walkerart.org.
STUDENTS COME EARLY
Students own the rush line! Get in line an hour before showtime for $15 rush tickets. One ticket per person with student ID. (Some restrictions apply.)
GET TOGETHER
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ABOUT THE WALKER ART CENTER
The Walker Art Center is a renowned multidisciplinary arts institution that presents, collects, and supports the creation of groundbreaking work across the visual and performing arts, moving image, and design. Guided by the belief that art has the power to bring joy and solace and the ability to unite people through dialogue and shared experiences, the Walker engages communities through a dynamic array of exhibitions, performances, events, and initiatives. Its multiacre campus includes 65,000 sq. ft. of exhibition space, the state-of-the-art McGuire Theater and Walker Cinema, and ample green space that connects with the adjoining Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. The Garden, a partnership with the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board, is one of the first urban sculpture parks of its kind in the United States and home to the beloved Twin Cities landmark Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. Recognized for its ambitious program and growing collection of more than 15,500 works, the Walker embraces emerging art forms and amplifies the work of artists from the Twin Cities and from across the country and the globe. Its broad spectrum of offerings makes it a lively and welcoming hub for artistic expression, creative innovation, and community connection.
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Commissioned by the Walker with support provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional Walker commissioning support provided by Lois and John Rogers.
Program support provided by King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury in honor of Henry Pillsbury, actor, theater director, and leading figure in Franco-American cross-cultural exchange in dance, theater, and music; Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; and the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Acknowledgments
The Walker Art Center’s Performing Arts programs are made possible by generous support from the Doris Duke Foundation through the Doris Duke Performing Arts Fund, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Producers Council
Performing Arts programs and commissions at the Walker are generously supported by members of the Producers’ Council: Christina Evans and Weston Hoard; Nor Hall and Roger Hale; Judith Brin Ingber and Jerome Ingber; Neal Jahren; King’s Fountain/Barbara Watson Pillsbury; Sarah Lutman and Rob Rudolph; Emily Maltz; Leni and David Moore, Jr./The David and Leni Moore Family Foundation; Therese Sexe and David Hage; and Mike and Elizabeth Sweeney.
Media partner
