The Dance Enthusiast Hits The Streets for PLATFORM 2016: A Body in Places

If you ever wondered how the master performers Eiko and Koma possess the stamina to perform with such intensity, Eiko’s Delicious Movement Workshop provides some secrets. One being, she enjoys herself; she is a seeker of new pleasures and new places. She challenges her imagination continually.

 

The participants, old and young, professionals and those new to dance, were invited to get dirty and put their face to the floor and imagine themselves to be surveyors of the land that is their body. She encouraged us to survey the mountains and valleys of our face with an explorer’s awareness, but to not take ourselves too seriously. She said with her soft voice, in keeping with her lithe, ghostly presence, as though an echo, “Oh, I have never been here before. Oh, I love how this feels. I know what I am doing."

 

Her first workshop on February 17 at Danspace offered a chance to experience how she moves to rest, sleep, and dream. Always the performer, Eiko lay down on the floor to demonstrate how sleep cannot come when you are so bored that you flip and flop. “You have to invite sleep.” She pulled a blanket over her and proceeded to bewitch us with her delicious movement. “Try yawning so that you stretch something… inside.”

 

 

Besides her move to rest, sleep, and dream, Eiko’s Delicious Movement Manifesto includes:

 

 

[read the full manifesto on eikoandkoma.org]

 

Eiko’s clarity of purpose is steady. Her articulate guidance during the workshop sheds light on the cerebral and sensual journey that this fascinating dancer goes on every time she moves. Her mysterious presence is mesmerizing. She quietly urges you to experience a depth of focus and concentration essential to her power. She forbids you to say "I can't imagine that." After forty years, which is how long she and her partner Koma have been perfecting their approach amidst a worldwide audience, you too might catch the gaze of a stunned bystander.

 

The Delicious Movement Workshop continues on Wednesdays March 2, 9, 16 at Danspace. For a complete listing of the performances, film showings at Anthology Film Archives, book club talks and manifestos, see http://www.danspaceproject.org/calendar/