An Evening with Eiko Otake, film screenings and discussion

Presented by the Mills College Dance Department and Mills Performing Arts

This presentation is open to the public, both in-person and via live stream.
Registration is required.

In-Person:
General Admission $5 to $30 , Free with valid Mills ID.
Capacity is limited and Proof of Vaccination is required.
Face Coverings are required, at all times, in all venues.
For more info and a list of accepted documents visit: Mills College COVID-19 event visitors policy.
Live Stream: 
Free -or- Pay What You Wish.
Live Stream link will be provided on the day of the event.

ASL interpretation will be provided.

This rare screening of works created during the pandemic will be followed by a conversation with the artist. Acclaimed performance artist Eiko Otake will present three of her evocative short films at Mills College’s historic Marilyn McArthur Holland Theater in Lisser Hall, on Feb. 18 at 7 pm and followed by a conversation between Otake and SanSan Kwan, professor in dance and asian studies at University of California Berkeley.

Eiko Otake is perhaps best known for the visually stunning interdisciplinary performance work, characterized by astonishingly slow motion movement, elaborate dreamscapes and breathtaking performances, that she created, performed and presented worldwide with her longtime collaborator Koma, between 1973 and 2014. 

The films to be screened, all created during the pandemic, include A Body in a Cemetery (15 min), an edited recording of her September 2020 performance in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, mourning the dead from the pandemic as well as from past centuries;  and  
Projecting Fukushima in Tokyo (35 min), which captures Eiko performing throughout Tokyo’s streets and underground locations, marking the 10-year anniversary of the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Eiko will conclude the evening with a report on her new work, Slow Turn, which includes a monologue performed on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks along the Hudson River near where the Twin Towers once stood.  

Otake, who is now in her 70s, has been surprising audiences worldwide since she set out in 2014 to make work on her own. The films she will share at Mills are part of this prodigious collection of intimate, emotionally evocative, and aesthetically arresting works that leave the stage behind, and place her in environments ranging from a train station in Philadelphia to the coastline of Fukushima. A 2022 Mills Performing Artist in Residence, Otake seems more inspired than ever, and has created a not-to-be-missed body of work that wrestles with destruction, mortality, relationship to the land, kinship and history. 

This screening marks Otake’s first public event after turning 70 and the beginning of her next 10-year project: Eiko Invites Herself. 

 

This event is presented by the generous support of the Theodora Faust-Anderson Project and Second Chances: More Dance at Mills.

These Funds support the annual engagement of a local or global guest artist or scholar in the Mills College Dance Department to share forms of dance, in areas other than those taught regularly by full-time faculty, with the goals of expanding the current offerings of the College and further enhancing its standing and reputation in the field. The project aims to culminate with an innovative public presentation reflective of a compassionate and comprehensive understanding of the world.
The Theodora Faust-Anderson Project, also known as the Thea Project, was established in memory of Thea Faust-Anderson, who graduated from Mills with a degree in dance in 2014. We appreciate this opportunity to celebrate Thea’s life as an advocate for global learning and artistic expression, including using dance to help others through performance and dance therapy.

Photo by William Johnson