Eiko Otake
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 creating numerous performance works.
Eiko’s first solo project was A Body in a Station, a 12 hour performance at Philadelphia’s 30th Street in 2014. Since then she has performed A Body in Places, a series of site specific solo performances at over 80 sites, including a month-long Danspace Project PLATFORM (2016) and three full-day performances at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2017).
Collaboratively created with photographer and historian William Johnston, A Body in Fukushima (2014–) is a multifaceted project that records Eiko‘s solo performances in post-nuclear disaster Fukushima. It consists of photo and video exhibitions, mix-media performances, lectures, a book publication, and a feature-length film.
Eiko is currently working on her 10-year project, I Invited Myself (2022–), a series of exhibitions and screenings of her media works. Its volume 3 was presented in Philadelphia in 2024 at Asian Arts Initiative and The Fabric Workshop and Museum.
Eiko has worked on the theme of death and dying for a long time, i.e. River (1995–1999), post-9/11 Offering (2002), Death Poem (2005) and Mourning (2007). More recently, in the historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, she has presented A Body in Cemetery (2020), Mother (2022), With the Dead (2022) and Stone (2023). She has also performed in Maplewood Cemetery in Durham, NC (2021) and Evergreen Cemetery in Colorado Springs, CO (2024).
