| Year and length: | 2025, 70’ (Italian premiere) |
|---|---|
| Choreography: | Wen Hui, Eiko Otake |
| With: | Wen Hui, Eiko Otake |
| Light design: | David A. Ferri |
| Dramaturgy: | Iris McCloughan |
| Management: | Katja Armknecht |
| Commissioned by: | The Walker Art Center |
| With: | UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance, Jacob’s Pillow, Colorado College Theater & Dance Department |
| Note: | What is War was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation. |
Dance
Wen Hui + Eiko Otake - What Is War
Description
What traces does the violence of war leave upon the body and within the collective memory of future generations? What is War brings together two artists whose histories are bound, each in her own way, to the same war, in a deeply personal duet: choreographer Wen Hui, who came of age during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and dancer and artist Eiko Otake, shaped by the legacy of postwar Japan.
Drawing on extensive research into the so-called “comfort women” — women trafficked and systematically abused by the Japanese army during the Second World War — Wen Hui and Eiko Otake weave together dance, video and text in a moving reflection on memory, trauma and the enduring effects of a historical sense of guilt.
Amid new wars and global crises, Wen Hui and Eiko Otake remind us how fragile — and how precious — every single life is.