The art of Eiko Otake is odd, but oddly arresting, captivating. And that’s by design. As the performance artist herself puts it, “There’s a certain poetic oddness that I claim, and the bottom line, that’s my aesthetic.” As the New York Times described it in the context of a 2016 international show, “she used her slender, seemingly vulnerable body as a vessel to embody trauma, fragility and desolation.” Otake’s experimental, movement-based art practice engages and pushes traditions of dance and explores themes of mortality, time and place. And the award-winning artist will be presenting the range of her expression in her first museum solo-exhibition, I Invited Myself, Vol. II, at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College, Feb. 3 – July 30.
The Fine Art Center exhibition highlights Otake’s recent film and video works, which have developed alongside her dance, choreography and performance installations. The works feature a body as it moves in and through various places, including the urban infrastructures of Tokyo and New York City, irradiated post-nuclear disaster Fukushima, and the vast landscapes of Wyoming and California. Viewers are strongly encouraged to return as select media will rotate over the course of the exhibition in recognition of changing seasons.
“I wish to create works only a performer can make,” Otake says in a press release. “I sincerely invite many different people to experience the exhibition. I want you to come back, observe the changes and feel intimate with this performer’s body and mind.”
Born in Japan and based in New York City, Otake is well known and highly awarded for both her performance and media work. She began performing professionally in 1972 with her partner as Eiko & Koma. Their collaborative career spanned more than 40 years and included two career exhibitions and durational “living installations” commissioned by the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center and MoMA. Eiko & Koma were awarded the first United States Artists Fellowship. They were the first collaborative pair to share a MacArthur Fellowship and the first Asian choreographers honored for their lifetime achievement with an American Dance Festival Scripps Award and Dance Magazine Award.
After Koma injured his ankle, Eiko began working independently in 2014, directing her own projects in collaboration with other artists. She has a long-standing relationship with Colorado College, having taught there since 2011.
“Eiko Otake has spent a career breaking down barriers and expectations for what can count as dance and where dance can happen,” says Ryan Platt, chair of the Theatre & Dance Program at Colorado College. “Bucking our society’s obsession with speed, she takes her art of radical slowness to all-too-real places, like Fukushima, the Japanese internment camps and Wall Street. Eiko invites us to witness our reckless neglect of the body as she explores sites of economic and ecological crisis. Perhaps the power of such witness can raise the alarm as we seek to survive the planetary unraveling that we all know is to come, all too soon.”
I Invited Myself, Vol. II blurs the boundaries between visual and live arts, says Michael Christiano, Museum Director at the Fine Arts Center: “Eiko’s creative practice pushes us to rethink the conventions of museum work to support an experience that will grow and change over time, both in our galleries and beyond.”
Related Events to Eiko Otake: I Invited Myself, Vol. II
There is a long list of opportunities to meet Eiko Otake, see her perform and enjoy related events. All are free and open to the public. Please check the Fine Arts Center website for the most up-to-date schedule of events and details.
Opening Celebration
Friday, Feb. 3, 5–7 p.m.
Please join artist Eiko Otake for a live performance in celebration of the opening of her solo exhibition I Invited Myself, Vol. II in the El Pomar Galleries at the Fine Arts Center.
Meet Artist Eiko Otake
Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 4-5, 11 a.m.–1 p.m.
Eiko Otake will be in the El Pomar Galleries at the Fine Arts Center to meet and speak with visitors. Please visit and converse with the artist.
Public Talks and Conversations
Thursday and Friday, Feb. 9–10
Thursday and Friday, April 6–7
Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center at Colorado College
In celebration of Otake’s solo exhibition I Invited Myself, Vol. II., the Department of Theater and Dance at Colorado College will host a series of two-day events featuring film screenings, live performance by Otake, and conversations with faculty, scholars and curators.
Special Highlight: Preview screening of No Rule Is Our Rule
Feb. 9, 6 p.m.
A feature-length film collaboratively created by Eiko Otake and Wen Hui, Beijing-based choreographer. Find it in the Cornerstone Arts Center Screening Room.
Eiko Otake: In the Community
Saturday and Sunday, July 15–16
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