Dance luminaries Wen Hui and Eiko Otake create a complex tapestry of language, movement, and video to share their personal memories related to war.
Wen Hui (b.1960) is Chinese and currently working in Europe. She grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. Eiko Otake (b.1952) is Japanese and lives in New York. She grew up in post-war Japan. Both are female performers/choreographers, and filmmakers.
In January 2020, Eiko visited Wen Hui in China for a month. It was where the artists began examining the personal memories they hold in their bodies. The pandemic obliged the artists to continue their dialogue at a distance. The process of co-editing a feature-length documentary film, No Rule Is Our Rule, that documented their time together in China, led them to work together physically in the U.S. to co-create this new performance work. During creative residencies at Duke University, Colorado College, and Mass MOCA, the collaborators also uncovered and learned new knowledge about war that continues to affect them deeply.
In this project, Wen Hui and Eiko Otake create a complex tapestry of language, movement, and video to share their personal memories related to war. As they move together, their bodies intimately support and absorb each other’s stories, inviting the audience to consider their own relationship to war on both a historic and personal scale.
Photo Credit: Zhou Huiyin
About the Artists
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Eiko Otake & Wen Hui | Concept, Choreography, and Performance
Iris McCloughan | Dramaturg
David A Ferri | Lighting Designer
Commissioned by the Walker Art Center. Co-commissioned by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA), Jacob’s Pillow, and Colorado College Theater & Dance Department.
What is War was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.
