As part of Duke Dance Program’s Centennial Series: Preserving Dance Legacies/Preparing the Future with performances, dialogues, screenings, and gatherings, we welcome two world-renowned dance artists, New York-based Japanese artist Eiko Otake and Chinese choreographer and filmmaker Wen Hui, for a two-week residency from March 26 to April 7, 2024. This residency is made possible through generous support from Duke Dance, Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, Duke Arts Presents, American Dance Festival, Asian Pacific Studies Institute, and the Office of the Dean for Humanities and the Arts.
During Eiko Otake and Wen Hui’s residency, the two artists will create a new work-in-progress while engaging in a series of public events. We invite you to join us for the following workshop, film screening, and a work-in-progress showing.
Film Screening: No Rule Is Our Rule (76 min) followed by a Q&A
7pm, Thursday, March 28, 2024
Ruby Film Theater, Rubenstein Arts Center
NO RULE IS OUR ROLE is a 76-minute documentary film about the friendship of two fiercely independent, interdisciplinary Asian female dance artists, Eiko Otake and Wen Hui, and the embodied memories each willingly carries. The film screening will be followed by an artist Q&A session moderated by Professor Jingqiu Guan.
Movement Workshop by Eiko Otake and Wen Hui
4:40-5:55pm, Friday, March 29, 2024
Rubenstein Arts Center 224 (Cube)
Limited space, first come first serve.
Please email Professor Jingqiu Guan at jingqiu.guan@duke.edu to RSVP for the workshop.
Work-in-Progress Showing followed by a Reception
2pm, Saturday, April 6, 2024
Ark Studio, the Ark Building (14 Epworth Lane, Durham, NC 27708)
Please join us for a work-in-progress showing of the new work that Eiko Otake and Wen Hui will create during the residency. A reception will take place right after the showing during which you could meet and converse with the artists.
About Eiko Otake: Born and raised in Japan and a resident of New York since 1976, Eiko Otake is a movement-based, interdisciplinary artist, whose collaborative and solo projects have been commissioned by American Dance Festival, BAM Next Wave Festival, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Modern Art, among others. Eiko has been the recipient of many awards including the MacArthur Fellowship, Doris Duke Award, Scripps American Dance Festival Award, and a Bessie’s Special Citation. She teaches at Wesleyan University, New York University, and Colorado College.
About Wen Hui: Wen Hui is one of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary dance theater. She is a choreographer, dancer, and she also makes documentary films and installations. She graduated with a degree in choreography from Beijing Dance Academy in 1989, and in 1994, she studied modern dance in New York. In 1994, she founded China’s first independent dance theater company, “Living Dance Studio.” In 2005, Wen Hui and Wu Wenguang established Caochangdi Workstation and co-curated the “Crossing” International Dance Festival in Beijing. Wen Hui’s works research how the body holds an archive of personal social documentation, and experiment with how bodily memory catalyzes collision between history and reality.