Supported by a commission from CRS, Berlin-based butoh dance artist Yuko Kaseki and ballet artist Megumi Eda present the first showing of their new collaborative dance work-in-progress, DIVINE, inspired by tragic tales of wronged and resilient women such as ballet’s “Giselle” and the classic Japanese Kaidan ghost story “Oiwa.” The performance will take place on Nov 13, 2022 at 6 pm in Studio 2 at Kunstquartier Bethanien, Mariannenplatz 2, 10997 Berlin. Tickets are 10 euros at the door.

These two dancers are like oil and water, moon and turtle, the North and South Pole, a crane in rubbish…. By exchanging their polar opposite approaches to movement and performance, they assume characters plagued with the discomfort and instability of unfamiliar, distorted bodies. These two figures with different space/time/ dimensions meet where the eye of the corona appears to have passed, which they cross in sympathy but filled with confusion and dissonance from wildly different types of existences. Their suffering and persistence echo the paths of Giselle and Oiwa and countless other women whose divine spirits have endured objectification, coercion, violence, and imprisonment in images and lives not of their own choosing or making.

This is only the second commission by CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) and the first production we have supported outside the United States. We became connected to Yuko Kaseki through the work of past CRS visiting instructor and performer Shinichi Momo Koga and through Yuko’s work with CAVE Art Space and Japan Society. We developed a relationship with Megumi when her daughter performed in ballet recitals at CRS under the direction of Rie Fukuzawa and through Megumi’s work with Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks. At Yoshiko’s suggestion, CRS presented Megumi’s talk and documentary video art at CRS, which grew out of Megumi’s work with Yoshiko. This project was, in fact, hatched at a School of Hard Kocks performance last October at Ki Smith Gallery, and we are grateful for Yoshiko’s support and encouragement.

Megumi Eda was born in Nagano, Japan and had her professional debut with the Matsuyama Ballet Company at age 14 in Tokyo where she appeared in many of the ballet classics in repertoire. After appearing successfully in the Prix de Lausanne Competition, she was invited to the Hamburg Ballet School and for the next 15 years, as a member of the Hamburg Ballet, the Dutch National Balletand the Rambert Dance Company, she worked with many choreographers including John Neumeier, Christopher Bruce, Jiri Kylian, Lindsey Kemp, William Forsythe, Hans van Manen, Twyla Tharp and David Dawson. In 2004, she moved to New York as a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance and has continued a close collaboration with Karole Armitage to this day. In addition to her work with Armitage she has begun to incorporate other art forms including sculpture and video into her own installations and performances. In New York, she has developed her passion as a video editor and a director. She has been collaborating with Yoshiko Chuma since 2014 as a Performer/Filmmaker. She won a Bessie Award (NYC Dance & Performance Awards) in 2004. Megumi was named one of Dance Magazine’s BEST PERFORMERS 2015.  Since 2018 she has lived in Berlin and has recently presented her solo choreography in Venice and Berlin.

megumieda.com

Yuko Kaseki is a director, choreographer, teacher and Butoh dancer who has lived in Berlin long and short enough. She has been searching for a way to penetrate the space between physical and spiritual expression. Every day she trains her perception to find the moment of extraordinary in the ordinary.She studied Butoh dance and Performing Art in HBK Braunschweig with Anzu Furukawa and danced in her company Dance Butter Tokio and Verwandlungsamt in 1989-2000.

in 1995, Yuko Kaseki and Marc Ates founded the dance company cokaseki. cokaseki is as an ensemble for performative research around dance, visual arts and experimental music in live events and improvisations at theater, gallery, site specific space, and film… Since then various members have been part of the group in different roles and changing creative responsibilities. Collaborations have been taking place in numerous international projects with performers such as Christine Bonansea, Sherwood Chen, Shinichi Iova Koga, 4RUDE, Minako Seki, Lisa Stertz, Valentin Tszin, Teo Vlad, musicians such as Antonis Anissegos, Kriton Beyer, Audrey Chen, Contagious, Kirikoo Des, Axel Dörner, Echo Ho, Emilio Gordoa, miu, Nguyễn + Transitory, Yasumune Morishige, Olaf Rupp, Tot Onyx, Sasha Pushkin, SEQUOIA, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Xenon, and visual artists such as, Nikhil Chopra, Morvarid K, Sarane Lecompte, Arata Mori, Justin Palermo, Chiharu Shiota, Peter Zach, and more.

Solo and ensemble performances, collaborations, and improvisations are performed throughout Europe, Finland, Norway, Georgia, Turkey, Russia, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Burkina Faso, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Australia, and the USA.

These works are accumulations of poetic and vivid images that incorporate the spirit of Butoh, and her performance aims to reflect the outsider’s existence.

Her strong interest about breaking border of physical expression, leads to projects with artists with mixed ability such as Theater Thikwa (Berlin), Roland Walter (Berlin), Sung Kuk Kang (Seoul), Zan-Chen Liao (Taipei).

Yuko Kaseki performs and organizes improvisation series “AMMO-NITE GIG” (Vol.1- 48 and on going) with international performers and musicians since 2004.

Various collaboration, AmaTerraz and quantsquat with Teo Vlad (Berlin), inkBoat (San Francisco), CAVE (New York), Tableau Stations (San Francisco), improvisation duo with Antonis Anissegos (Berlin), ITAKO with Kazuhisa Uchihashi (Berlin), Poema Theater (Moscow), Theater Salad (Seoul) and many others.

cokaseki.com