Eiko Otake: A Body in Fukushima

New York-based artist Eiko Otake (1952, Tokyo) will present an iteration of her performance A Body in Fukushima at Mudam. She first visited Fukushima in 2011 – after the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown. From 2014–2019, Otake returned to Fukushima with her photographer and collaborator William Johnston five more times to perform in the changed landscape for a camera alone. This led to numerous exhibitions, screenings, talks and performances across the world. 

The scale, contents and modes of presentation of A Body in Fukushima vary depending on the place, the hosting institution and the communities. At the core of each variant is the artist presenting her body both in the irradiated landscape at a distance and in the immediate gaze of the audience, where her public performance takes place. Offering her body as a conduit between Fukushima and elsewhere, Otake wishes to challenge and change the viewers’ sense of distance to the major catastrophes of our time.

Biography

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 Eiko & Koma performing their own choreography. Since 2014, Eiko has been directing her own projects. In her solo project A Body in Places., Eiko has performed numerous site-specific works. A Body in Fukushima records Eiko‘s solo performances in post-nuclear disaster Fukushima. In her Duet Project, Eiko has been engaged in an open-ended series of cross-disciplinary experiments with a diverse range of artists, including Wen Hui with whom Eiko is performing in What Is War. A recipient of MacArthur, the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award, and Doris Duke Artist Award, Eiko teaches regularly at colleges and in communities.