Eiko & Koma - Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty by Suzanne Carbonneau (30-Jun-2011) Paperback

by Joan Rothfuss

Operating at the intersections of dance, art and performance for nearly 40 years, acclaimed Japanese movement/performance artists Eiko & Koma have built up an enormously influential body of movement-theater productions, including theatrically staged performances, site works, dance videos, gallery-based performance installations and collaborations with leading music, dance and visual artists. Time Is Not Even, Space Is Not Empty presents a complete, illustrated catalogue of their dance works, alongside editor's and choreographer's notes, reprints of primary source and other archival material, and a series of newly commissioned written responses by Anna Halprin, Dean Otto, Sam Miller, Peter Taub and others. A distinguished group of scholars from the dance and visual arts fields offer interpretations of the artists' work, including a history of the artists' relationship with the institution by Walker curator Philip Bither; an in-depth overview by Suzanne Carbonneau, Professor of Performance at George Mason University and Director of the Institute for Dance Criticism at the American Dance Festival; an essay on the sculptural qualities of Eiko & Koma's movement by Andr� Lepecki, Associate Professor at New York University's Tisch School of Performance Studies; and a reflection/interview with the artists on their formative years in Japan and the U.S. by Doryun Chong, Associate Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Two visual essays"" by noted photographers Philip Trager and Jan Henle and a selection of poems by Forrest Gander round out the volume.""

Genres: Art

Unknown Binding

First published July 31, 2011

Reviews

[Serdar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Catalog of the performances of, and celebration of the art of, a couple whose art was and remains themselves -- their bodies, the spaces they created between each other and with each other, and the relationships formed between those things and their audiences and their collaborators. As Sam Miller put it in his contribution to the book, "Eiko & Koma are their own clay."

Most of the book is taken up with photos and descriptions of their various performances, but the first third or so is a detailed introduction to their history, in their own words and those of others. This one will live on my shelf next to the treatises of Zeami and John Cage's "Silence".