Arts on the Edge Wolfeboro August 11, 2009

Eiko and Koma - "Hunger of the Land"
Hunger of the Land is Eiko & Koma’s reworking of their 1991 work Land, made in collaboration with Native American musician Robert Mirabal. Land was inspired by Eiko & Koma’s time in Taos, New Mexico, where Mirabal was raised and still lives. Taos has been the tribal territory of Taos Pueblo Indians for more than 1,000 years, and it is home to 2,000 people who live with ancestral traditions. Yet this New Mexico landscape was also the site of the first nuclear testing, which enabled the 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Eiko & Koma and Mirabal visited Hiroshima in the process of making of Land.

In Land, Eiko & Koma created their own archaic landscape, a site of perseverance actively imagined and kinetically felt by performers and audience alike. Now, 15 years later, Eiko & Koma are revisiting the concept and commissioned music of Land and incorporating the theme of hunger from their newest work Hunger (2008). In Hunger of the Land, Eiko & Koma show how it is not only humans that are hungry—land is also hungry for nourishment and intimacy.

Hunger of the Land is one of the first components of Eiko & Koma’s multi-year, multifaceted Retrospective Project which will include live installations, the publication of catalog and DVD set, photo exhibitions, and workshops. This project will allow Eiko & Koma to reflect on their work and examine the motifs they have shared with their audience over time. Prototype versions of Hunger of the Land were performed in Spring 2009 at the Alaska Dance Theater during Eiko & Koma’s residency as Alaska AIR Fellows, a United States Artist program, and as a part of the Retrospective Project’s inaugural meeting at Wesleyan University. In Hunger of the Land Eiko & Koma will examine, question, and contradict their own history as they continue to perform and create.

Eiko & Koma are interested in how land perseveres while also remembering its past. Even though Hiroshima’s land was assaulted by humans, the land keeps living—just as people strive to live even when they are hungry. Neither the assault nor the hunger is forgotten—these become essential parts of how land or people continue to live. In Hunger of the Land, Eiko & Koma are presenting a visual landscape that is scorched yet also nurtures new life. This work started with sites specific to the collaborators but it will take on new meaning at each site where it is presented. Audiences will bring individual knowledge of the land and ancestry at each site so that the work becomes both universal and specific. Hunger of the Land will be performed in Summer 2009 at Arts Edge Wolfeboro in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire and Teater Salihara in Jakarta, Indonesia. Set and costumes are by Eiko & Koma.

Official Website: http://www.artsedgewolfeboro.org