this week in lectures, signings, panel discussions, workshops, and Q&As

THE BIG OSCARS QUIZ THING

biq quiz oscars thing

(le) poisson rouge
158 Bleecker St.
Sunday, February 28, $10 in advance, $15 at the door, 5:30
212-505-4474
www.bigquizthing.com
www.lepoissonrouge.com

Just how good is your knowledge of Oscar history? How do you do every year in your Oscar pool? You can test your skill on Sunday night, when the Big Quiz Thing hosts its fourth annual Academy Award–themed multimedia team trivia competition. The Big Oscars Quiz Thing will take place at (le) poisson rouge in Greenwich Village, leading right into the actual Oscars telecast, which will be broadcast live at the club on large screens, starting with the red carpet; Quizmaster EdP will keep the trivia questions coming during the Oscars show. Among the giveaways you’ll be trying to win are passes to On Location Tours, an Intro to Improv class at the PIT, Insomnia cookies to make sure you stay awake for what is always a rather long ceremony, a membership to (le) poisson rouge, screening passes to Videology, passes to the Broadway Comedy Club, and tickets to Scott’s Pizza Tours. Here’s one question to get you going, and remember, no cheating: Who was the youngest actor to ever win an Oscar?

THE CHERRY ORCHARD

Lev Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre of St. Petersburg inject the comedy back into THE CHERRY ORCHARD (photo © Stephanie Berger)

Brooklyn Academy of Music
BAM Harvey Theater
651 Fulton St. at Ashland Pl.
Through February 27, 7:30
718-636-4100
www.bam.org

In 1904, shortly after witnessing the premiere of what would be his last play, The Cherry Orchard, directed by Konstantin Stanislavski at the Moscow Art Theatre, Anton Chekhov wrote to his wife, Olga, who was playing Madame Ranevskaya, “Stanislavski has ruined my play. Oh well, I don’t suppose anything can be done about it.” Although the play was a hit, Chekhov believed it to be a comedy with farcical elements, while Stanislavski, who later became famous for his method acting system, staged it as a tragedy. But now innovative Siberian-born Russian theater director Lev Dodin has indeed done something about it, something wonderful, presenting The Cherry Orchard in all its (tragi)comic glory, continuing at BAM through February 27. Dodin and his St. Petersburg-based Maly Drama Theatre previously brought Uncle Vanya to BAM in 2010, followed by Three Sisters in 2012. For their version of The Cherry Orchard, which was named Best Large Scale Drama at Russia’s prestigious Golden Mask festival last year, Dodin and set designer Aleksander Borovsky have transformed the charmingly pseudo-dilapidated environment of the BAM Harvey into the formerly extravagant home of Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya (Ksenia Rappoport). Every seat is wrapped in a linen seat cover, evoking the ghostly white sheets draped over the family’s furniture gathered on the floor at the foot of the stage, from a billiards table, a bed, a piano, and a bookcase to chairs for some of the audience members, who occasionally find members of the cast sitting next to them. Lyubov has just been called home from Paris because the estate’s centerpiece, a lush, beautiful, well-known cherry orchard, is being put up for auction to help pay off the family’s debts. While Lyubov, her brother, Gayev (alternately played by Igor Chernevich and Sergei Vlasov), her biological daughter, Anya (Danna Abyzova), and her adopted daughter, Varya (Elizaveta Boiarskaia), go on about the past, don’t seriously consider the future, and flirt around with perpetual student Petr Trofimov (Oleg Ryazantsev), clerk Semen Yepikhodov (Andrei Kondratiev), and merchant Yermolai Lopakhin (Danila Kozlovskiy), only Lopakhin has come up with a plan of action. Lopakhin, a wealthy man whose father was a serf on the cherry orchard, tries to convince the family to chop down the trees and turn the area into summer rental cottages, or dachas, but Lyubov and Gayev fail to recognize what’s happening in the present, and throughout Russia, stuck in their old aristocratic ways and ignoring the oncoming revolution. Even when they lose the orchard and the estate at auction, they don’t truly understand the consequences as the victor celebrates his spoils.

Madame Lyubov Ranevskaya (Ksenia Rappoport) and her brother, Gayev (Igor Chernevich) face the end of an era in fabulous new production of Chekhov classic (photo © Stephanie Berger)

In his 2005 book, Journey without End: Reflections and Memoirs, the Siberian-born Dodin wrote in a chapter entitled “Why I Don’t Direct Comedies”: “I am interested not in comic situations but in the amusement of self-recognition, even when it is tinged with anguish.” That is precisely how he approaches The Cherry Orchard, which boasts grand comic gestures amid the sadness. The uniformly outstanding cast — some of whom make their way up and down the orchestra steps at the Harvey, delivering lines while standing right next to audience members, Damir Ismagilov’s lighting illuminating sections of the crowd — also features Tatiana Shestakova as the governess, Charlotta; Andrei Kondratiev as Semen Yepikhodov, a clerk; Arina Von Ribben as Dunyasha, the piano-playing housemaid; Stanislav Nikolskii as Yasha, the young manservant; and a fabulously funny Sergei Kuryshev as Firs, the aging manservant who shuffles about ever-so-slowly while moaning about the good old days when he was an abused and mistreated slave. Rappoport is superb as Madame Lyubov, always dressed in black, in constant mourning for the drowning death of her son but occasionally getting caught up in silent slapstick, but the dapper Kozlovskiy steals the show, roaming the Harvey in his brightly colored outfit and yellow shoes, at one point dancing up and down the aisles and breaking out into a decidedly non-early-twentieth-century-Russian song. Another way Dodin injects fresh life into the old theatrical warhorse is by using film projections; when Lopakhin first presents his plan to the family, he does so by showing haunting footage of the orchard, as if bringing their fading memories, and their virtually unbreakable bond to the past, right out in the open. Although Chekhov was inspired by real-life situations when writing the play, including the story of an actual cherry orchard, the symbolism is still apparent, though subtle; cherry blossoms signal the coming of spring, but their brief existence reminds us of the impermanence of beauty, of material desires, of life itself. “My life’s gone by as if I’d never lived at all,” the doddering, elderly Firs mumbles at the start of the play. With their version of The Cherry Orchard, Dodin and the Maly Drama Theatre evoke all of that and more while making sure we have plenty of time to laugh at life’s endless foibles. The Cherry Orchard continues through February 27; on February 24 at 6:00 ($25) in BAM Rose Cinemas, Ethan Hawke, who played Trofimov in Sam Mendes and Tom Stoppard’s 2009 version of the play, and David Hyde Pierce, who was Yasha in Peter Brook’s 1988 production, both of which were seen at BAM, will participate in the discussion “Into the Archives: The Cherry Orchard” with BAM Hamm Archives director Sharon Lehner.

SUPER SÁBADO: CARNAVAL!

carnaval

FREE THIRD SATURDAYS
El Museo del Barrio
1230 Fifth Ave. at 104th St.
Saturday, February 20, free, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm
212-831-7272
www.elmuseo.org

El Museo del Barrio celebrates carnaval with the February edition of its free third Saturdays Super Sábado program. There will be a Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert featuring Nation Beat; a meet-and-greet with NYC family ambassador Dora the Explorer; an arteXplorers Family Corner activity card; Colorín Colorado . . . with Something Positive Inc. bringing the story “Come Dance with Me” to life with carnaval characters Jab Molassie and Dame Lorraine and a participatory procession; a Movement Workshop with dancers from Conjunto Nuevo Milenio teaching traditional dances from El Palenque; a Manos a la Obra art workshop in which kids can make their own vejigante mask; and guided tours of the exhibitions “The Illusive Eye” and “Figure and Form: Recent Acquisitions to the Permanent Collection.”

MARIA HASSABI: PLASTIC

(photo by Julieta Cervantes / (c) Museum of Modern Art)

Maria Hassabi rehearses PLASTIC at MoMA on October 30, 2015 (photo by Julieta Cervantes / © Museum of Modern Art)

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
February 21 – March 20, free with museum admission ($14-$25)
212-708-9400
www.moma.org
mariahassabi.com

In a 2011 twi-ny talk, Cyprus-born, New York City–based dancer and choreographer Maria Hassabi declared, “I was born flexible!” That statement is true not only of the remarkable things she can do with her body but also of where she performs her impressive, often painfully slow movement. We’ve seen her wrestle with a carpet at PS122, maneuver through a packed house seated on the floor at the Kitchen, and crawl down the cobblestoned path of Broad St. Ever investigating the relationship between performer and audience as well as dance and object — in 2012, Hassabi collaborated with Lutz Bacher and Tony Conrad on “Chandeliers,” in which more than a dozen light fixtures descended from floor to ceiling over the course of the day at the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève — Hassabi next will set up shop at the Museum of Modern Art, where she will present Plastic for one month. Every day from February 21 to March 20, Hassabi and her team of dancers will be at several locations in MoMA, moving among the visitors, so watch out where you walk, because there will be no barriers separating them from you. You’ll find Simon Courchel, Jessie Gold, Neil Greenberg, Elizabeth Hart, Kennis Hawkins, Niall Jones, Shelley Senter, RoseAnne Spradlin, and David Thomson in the Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium, Hassabi, Hristoula Harakas, Molly Lieber, Paige Martin, and Oisín Monaghan on the Marron Atrium and Agnes Gund Garden Lobby staircase, and Jones, Michael Helland, Tara Lorenzen, and Mickey Mahar on the staircase between the fourth- and fifth-floor galleries. The sound design is by Morten Norbye Halvorsen, with song fragments by Marina Rosenfeld. “Taking place underfoot in the transitional spaces of a museum known for its crowds, the work can be seen from multiple vantage points and inverts the typical relationship between performer and viewer so that it is the dancer who appears static and the onlooker who moves,” writes MoMA associate curator Thomas J. Lax in the brochure for the living installation, which was co-commissioned by MoMA, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. On February 24 at 7:00 ($8-$12) in the atrium, Hassabi will discuss the work with Philip Bither of the Walker Art Center.

STEVE McCURRY SELECTS: LIMELIGHT

Charlie Chaplin looks back on his life and career in the melancholic classic LIMELIGHT

LIMELIGHT (Charles Chaplin, 1952)
Rubin Museum of Art
150 West 17th St. at Seventh Ave.
Friday, February 19, $10, 9:30
Series continues Friday nights through February 26
212-620-5000
rubinmuseum.org

“You will feel closer to Charlie the man, seeing this film, than in any of the other films where he plays a character, magnificently, but this is different. This is him,” Claire Bloom said before a sixtieth anniversary screening of Charlie Chaplin’s Limelight. In what was intended to be his farewell film, Chaplin bids adieu to his Little Tramp character and laments the end of an era in this deeply personal work, which features five of his children, his brother, his half-brother, and silent film comedians Snub Pollard and Buster Keaton. Though made in Hollywood in 1951, Limelight is set in Chaplin’s native London in 1914, the year he began his movie career at Keystone Studios. Chaplin is Calvero, a former vaudeville-style music hall star — modeled on himself as well as comedian Frank Tinney, Spanish clown Marceline, and his father — who is now a down-on-his-luck forgotten drunk. He comes home one day, smells gas, and breaks down the door of a neighbor’s apartment, saving a beautiful young ballerina, Thereza “Terry” Ambrose (Claire Bloom), from suicide. As the kind and gentle Calvero nurses her back to health, determined that she resume her career (in a way, as a surrogate for his current failures), Terry falls in love with him. Calvero tells her that it is not a real, romantic love; the character is partially based on Chaplin’s mother, whom he cared for while she suffered from mental illness, although there are obvious age parallels to his real-life wife, Oona O’Neill, whom he married in 1943 when he was fifty-four and she was eighteen. (Chaplin was sixty-three when Limelight was released, Bloom twenty-one.) But Terry insists her love is genuine and true, and soon they are both restarting their careers, with very different results.

Calvero (Charles Chaplin) cares for suicidal ballerina Terry (Claire Bloom) in LIMELIGHT

Aptly called “a sublime exorcism” by Bernardo Bertolucci, Limelight is overly long, too melodramatic, frustratingly repetitive, and often absurdly sentimental, but it’s impossible not to become engrossed in its touching magic, especially when considering its autobiographical nature. At the time, Chaplin, whose previously film was 1947’s much-maligned Monsieur Verdoux, was being investigated by the U.S. government for suspected communist ties and questionable morality; when he went overseas for Limelight’s British premiere, he was barred from returning to America, and he would not come back to the States until 1972, when he was awarded an honorary Oscar; even then, he was allowed only a temporary stay. Chaplin, who wrote, directed, produced, and choreographed the film and composed the score, fills Limelight with emotional statements that range from philosophical and psychological to quaint and treacly, though relevant to both the fictional Calvero and the real-life comedian. Cinematographer Karl Struss (The Great Dictator, Some Like It Hot) regularly zeroes in on Calvero’s often pitiable face, eyes occasionally turned directly into the camera and at the viewer; the sadness Chaplin expresses particularly when removing stage makeup is heartbreaking. “I believe I’m dying, Doctor,” he says at one point. “Then, I don’t know. I’ve died so many times.” The melancholic film, which intelligently deals with art and aging in changing times, also stars Nigel Bruce, best known as Watson to Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes, as the ballet company owner, Norman Lloyd as the company manager, Marjorie Bennett as Calvero’s landlady, Canadian ballerina Melissa Hayden as Terry’s dance double, and André Eglevsky as the male ballet dancer. The sketch performed by Chaplin and Keaton, the only time they worked together on film, is, of course, a gem, as painful as it is funny. Perhaps the most telling line is when Terry says to composer and pianist Neville (Sydney Earl Chaplin, Charlie’s brother), “What is more eloquent than silence?” Chaplin would go on to make only two more pictures, 1957’s A King in New York and 1967’s A Countess from Hong Kong, his only film in which he didn’t have a major role. He died on Christmas Day in 1977, at the age of eighty-eight, still married to Oona. Limelight is screening February 19 as part of the Rubin Museum Cabaret Cinema series “Steve McCurry Selects,” held in conjunction with the photo exhibition “Steve McCurry: India,” and will be introduced by Teva Bjerken. The series concludes February 26 with Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, introduced by journalist Phil Zabriskie.

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT takes viewers on an extraordinary journey into the heart of darkness and beyond

EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (EL ABRAZO DE LA SERPIENTE) (Ciro Guerra, 2015)
Film Forum, 209 West Houston St., 212-727-8110
Lincoln Plaza Cinema, 1886 Broadway at 63rd St., 212-757-2280
Opens Wednesday, February 17
embraceoftheserpent.oscilloscope.net

Colombian writer-director Ciro Guerra takes viewers on a spectacular journey through time and space and deep into the heart of darkness in the extraordinary Embrace of the Serpent. Guerra’s Oscar-nominated film, the first to be shot in the Colombian Amazon in thirty years, opens with a 1909 quote from explorer Theodor Koch-Grünberg: “It is not possible for me to know if the infinite jungle has started on me the process that has taken many others to complete and irremediable insanity.” Inspired by the real-life journals of Koch-Grünberg and botanist and explorer Richard Evans Schultes, Guerra poetically shifts back and forth between two similar trips down the Vaupés River, both led by the same Amazonian shaman, each time guiding a white scientist on a perilous expedition in a long, narrow canoe. Shortly after the turn of the twentieth century, ailing white ethnologist Theo (Jan Bijvoet) and his native aid, Manduca (Yauenkü Migue), seek the help of Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), a shaman wholly suspicious of whites and who believes he is the last of his tribe. However, Theo claims he knows where remnants of Karamakate’s people live and will show him in return for helping him find the magical and mysterious hallucinogenic Yakruna plant that Theo thinks can cure his illness. Forty years later, white botanist Evan (Brionne Davis) enlists Karamakate (Antonio Bolívar Salvador) to locate what is thought to be the last surviving Yakruna plant, which he hopes will finally allow him to dream in order to heal his soul. Evoking such films as Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God and Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now, Embrace of the Serpent makes the rainforest itself a character, shot in glorious black-and-white by David Gallego (Cecilia, Violencia) in a sparkling palette reminiscent of the work of Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. As the parallel stories continue, the men encounter similar locations that have changed dramatically over time, largely as a result of rubber barons descending on the forest and white missionaries bringing Western religion to the natives. It’s difficult to watch without being assailed by imperialist concepts of the “noble savage,” mainly because the Amazon — and our Western minds — have been so profoundly affected by those ideas. “Before he can become a warrior, a man has to leave everything behind and go into the jungle, guided only by his dreams,” the older Karamakate says. “In that journey he has to discover, completely alone, who he really is.”

Guide Karamakate (Antonio Bolívar Salvador) and botanist Evan (Brionne Davis) explore dreams in Ciro Guerra’s EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT

Winner of the Directors’ Fortnight Art Cinema Award at the Cannes Film Festival and nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award, Embrace of the Serpent is an unforgettable spiritual quest into the ravages of colonialism, the evils of materialism, the end of indigenous cultures, and what should be a sacred relationship between humanity and nature. Written by Guerra (2004’s Wandering Shadows, 2009’s The Wind Journeys) and Jacques Toulemonde (Anna), it is told from the point of view of the indigenous people of the Amazon, whom Guerra worked closely with in the making of the film, assuring them of his intentions to not exploit them the way so many others have. Aside from the Belgian Bijvoet and the Texan Davis, the rest of the cast is made up of members of tribes that live along the Vaupés. Guerra actually brought along a shaman known as a payé to perform ritual ceremonies to ensure the safety of the cast and crew and to protect the jungle itself. “What Ciro is doing with this film is an homage to the memory of our elders, in the time before: the way the white men treated the natives, the rubber exploitation,” Torres, in his first movie, says about the film. “I’ve asked the elders how it was and it is as seen in the film; that’s why we decided to support it. For the elders and myself it is a memory of the ancestors and their knowledge.” Salvador, who previously had bad experiences with filmmakers, notes, “It is a film that shows the Amazon, the lungs of the world, the greater purifying filter, and the most valuable of indigenous cultures. That is its greatest achievement.” Embrace of the Serpent is a great achievement indeed, an honest, humanistic, maddening journey that takes you places you’ve never been. Embrace of the Serpent opens February 17 at Lincoln Plaza and Film Forum; Guerra will participate in a Skype Q&A at Film Forum following the 6:40 screening on February 20.

TWI-NY TALK: EIKO / PLATFORM 2016

Eiko makes her way to the Fulton Center subway hub in June 2015 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eiko makes her way to the Fulton Center subway hub in June 2015 for “A Body in a Station” (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

PLATFORM 2016: A BODY IN PLACES
Danspace Project
St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery
131 East Tenth St. between Second & Third Aves.
February 17 – March 23, free – $20
866-811-4111
www.danspaceproject.org
www.eikoandkoma.org

Based in New York City since 1976, Eiko Otake and Takashi Koma have been creating uniquely fragile and evocative dances and “living installations” for forty years, taking place on proscenium stages as well as site-specific indoor and outdoor locations around the world. Here in New York City, they’ve performed Grain in an East Village loft, Event Fission on the Hudson River landfill near the World Trade Center, Water in Lincoln Center’s reflecting pool on Hearst Plaza, and Offering, Tree Song, and Cambodian Stories Revisited in the graveyard of St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery. In 2014, Eiko began her solo project, A Body in Places, consisting of free, site-specific works in nontraditional venues, including the new Fulton Center subway hub.

The Tokyo-born Eiko is returning to St. Mark’s as the focal point of Danspace Project’s 2016 Platform series, consisting of live performances, discussions, art, movie screenings (at Anthology Film Archives), special duets, and more, curated by Judy Hussie-Taylor and Lydia Bell. This tenth Platform festival runs February 17 to March 23 and will include “Talking Duets” with such artists as Ishmael Houston-Jones, John Kelly, and Elizabeth Streb; “Precarious” guest solos by Eiko, Beth Gill, Donna Uchizono, Koma, and more; Delicious Movement Workshops for participants as well as observers; a book club examining works by such writers as Kenzaburō Ōe, Tamiki Hara, and C. D. Wright; an art installation and readings with writer Claudia La Rocco, visual artist Paul Chan, painter and rapper DonChristian Jones, and others; a twenty-four-hour remembrance on the fifth anniversary of the Fukushima disaster; and weekday solos by Eiko in unannounced locations around St. Mark’s Church. Eiko recently discussed Platform with twi-ny as she prepared for this exciting month-long multidisciplinary program.

twi-ny: How did the idea of your being the centerpiece of Platform come about? It’s quite a major undertaking.

Eiko: A year ago, when Danspace’s executive director, Judy-Hussie Taylor, invited me to “the third Platform focused on a single choreographer,” I was surprised. First, I hardly consider myself as a choreographer and more a performer with a multidisciplinary practice. We had previously talked about Danspace possibly sponsoring a long and intimate run of my solo performance (and this does happen as a part of Platform). However, her proposal of the shift to a multifaceted project was unexpected. “Platform is all about relationships,” says Judy. But, while I have choreographer/dancer friends, I do not have the kind of dense relationship with the dance community that other choreographers have. While many choreographers work with dancers and each other and they frequent the same studios and classes, I have, for decades, worked with only Koma without a dance studio or classes.

But through many long and dense dialogues with the patient and persuasive Judy, as well as Lydia Bell, Danspace Project’s program director, who was Eiko & Koma’s Retrospective Project coordinator from 2009 to 2011, the Platform programs have evolved! Some were my ideas and some were Judy’s and/or Lydia’s. Together, the programs are now very expansive in scope, with many activities and participants. I am endlessly thankful and in awe of Judy, Lydia, the rest of the Danspace staff, and the participating artists.

Eiko & Koma perform at MoMA in 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

Eiko & Koma perform “The Caravan Project” at MoMA in 2011 (photo by twi-ny/mdr)

twi-ny: As you noted, the Platform series will focus on your recent solo work; what made you decide to do the solo project in the first place, and how did Koma take it when you first told him about it?

Eiko: After working as Eiko & Koma since 1972, we had four very intense years creating and touring the Retrospective Project, followed by the Archive Project. That made me see and remember so many works Eiko & Koma had created. So while I felt proud, I also started to look for ways that I can work differently. Teaching also encouraged me to think independently. I wanted to find ways to work outside of theaters. Koma happened to have suffered a series of injuries that required care, so it actually made sense that I work alone. He is now feeling better and working on his own solo project.

twi-ny: How did you go about choosing which dancers and choreographers you wanted to participate in “Precarious: Solos,” which was inspired by a quote Hussie-Taylor selected from Judith Butler’s Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence?

Eiko: “Precarious: Solos” was more or less Judy’s idea and it is a continuation of what she has done under the same title. My contribution was to encourage all artists to present not group works but solos with low tech.

twi-ny: What was it about the quote [“When we lose certain people, or when we are dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. . . .”] that made you and Judy want that to be the inspiration behind the solos?

Eiko: The Butler quote also came from Judy, and she thinks my work with Fukushima resonates with her thoughts.

twi-ny: What are some of the unique characteristics of St. Mark’s Church and the surrounding neighborhood that have gotten you excited about performing there again?

Eiko: St. Mark’s Church is a uniquely familiar and austere space with a rich history. I love to go there and I love to perform there. Because the church is open to so many activities, it is not easy to present heavy set pieces there, but that limitation served well with many choreographers. The East Village is also where we have hung around with friends. I love that diversity, and I owe to the memories. There have been many, many artists and activists in the area, some dead. And I had many, many nights of seeing and talking.

twi-ny: You’ve taken A Body in Places to Fukushima, Philadelphia, New York City, Hong Kong, and Chile. How did your performance change with each location? With the exception of Fukushima, where you had only one “witness,” did people react the same way to you, or does the response differ from city to city?

Eiko: You forgot Middletown, Connecticut! I teach one course a year at Wesleyan University, and its Center for the Arts has supported my experimentation since 2006. Wesleyan has been an incubator of many of the things Eiko & Koma and I have created. So for the Body in Places project, it helped me to create a photo exhibition, “A Body in Fukushima,” and it also presented my project at four different locations: a school library, a town library, an observatory, and an un-lived-in old house with a gallery. In general, I would say individual differences in response to my work are always bigger than city, country, and race differences. But performing in Middletown means I have young students as viewers who are invested in and interested in what I do. To perform there is a challenging practice, and I deliberately planned multiple performances in possible locations so as to train myself toward this platform through real performance practices.

In Hong Kong, I performed at the site where people who participated in the 2014 Umbrella Revolution had camped out for three months, stopping a major highway. Everyone who saw me perform there knew and remembered the place as a site with such important public memory. In Chile, my friends Forrest Gander and C. D. Wright came and invited Chilean poets to see me perform. [Ed. note: Wright, who was married to Gander, passed away last month at the age of sixty-seven.] Two poets recited poems each night as part of my performances. These and many more memories make each place I danced a very unique place for me and for viewers.

Eiko performs “A Body in Fukushima” in 2014 (photo by William Johnston)

twi-ny: You and Koma have lived in New York City for nearly forty years now. What is your impression of how the city has changed since 1976? How different might your edition of Platform have been if this were 1976, 1986, 1996, or 2006?

Eiko: Of course, the city is sooooo different. It is so much more expensive to live here, and because of that the city is bigger as friends now live in far places. But I love New York for its intensity. I would not be able to do this Platform any earlier than now.

twi-ny: Without giving away some of the locations where you will be performing your daily solos, what are some of your favorite public spots in New York City?

Eiko: I like many places I performed in this project and as Eiko & Koma. To name a few: St Mark’s Church graveyard, Bryant Park, community gardens, the Whitney Museum, the Fulton Center, Governors Island, etc., etc. But these are very different places from where I will perform for this Platform. It is winter and I need to be indoors and in intimate places.

twi-ny: You have written, “I fight without any potential to win but I fight because they should not stand unopposed.” Do you really see no way to win this fight?

Eiko: I meant I do not know really how to win, as I am not a political activist. But I think it is important for artists to know what you are against, whether you have a prospect to win or not.

twi-ny: Which battles are most important to you right now?

Eiko: I am against corporate greed and human arrogance.

twi-ny: Your movement is intensely slow, often set to silence or natural, environmental sounds. When you’re not performing in front of a crowd, do you ever just blast music and dance like crazy?

Eiko: No. I do not have the desire to do that now. But when I am really down I can listen to some special song, like Nina Simone’s “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon.”