Eiko and Koma will perform in Lincoln Center’s Paul Milstein Pool as part of free Out of Doors Festival (photo by Robert G. Sanchez)
Lincoln Center Out of Doors
Paul Milstein Pool, Hearst Plaza
July 27-31, free, 9:30
212-875-5000
www.lcoutofdoors.org
www.eikoandkoma.org
In the spring, innovative New York-based dancers and choreographers Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma performed the powerful Naked at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, a free, haunting “living installation” in which the longtime couple moved perilously slowly in a postapocalyptic organic environment that included tantalizing drips of water coming from the ceiling. For their latest site-specific work, Eiko and Koma will perform in the Paul Milstein Pool at Hearst Plaza, July 27-31 at 9:30, as part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors Festival. Native American flutist-composer Robert Mirabal will accompany the dancers in the water, playing his original score live. Also on hand will be Henry Moore’s “Reclining Figure,” which has occupied the pool for years. The new piece was partly inspired by Eiko and Koma’s 1995 River, which takes place in moving water and was recently reconstructed for the 2011 American Dance Festival; water has also played a role in such previous productions as Elegy (1984), Thirst (1985), and Passage (1989). “In this most urban landscape of midtown Manhattan, we also intend to remember and imagine the ancient water all living things came from and each of us was born from,” they explain in a program note. “Finally, many recent disasters remind us that water’s seeming calm is illusory.” It is appropriate that Water is taking place in a reflecting pool, as Lincoln Center is also hosting “Residue,” a multimedia exhibition that looks back at Eiko and Koma’s long career in conjunction with their ongoing Retrospective Project, featuring video, sets, costumes, and the extraordinary structure built for Naked. The display continues at the Astor Gallery at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts through October 30. On July 28 at 6:00, Dance magazine editor in chief Wendy Perron will speak with Eiko and Koma and show several of their short videos, including My Parents, The Retrospective Project, Dancing in Water: The Making of River, and The Making of Cambodian Stories. All events are free and open to the public.