Movement as Installation: Eiko & Koma in Conversation with Matthew Yokobosky

[From May 28 to June 21, 1998, the Whitney Museum of American Art presented a "live installation" by Eiko & Koma titled Breath. Within the 35' x 30' x 16' dimensions of the Whitney Museum's Film and Video Gallery, Eiko & Koma created an environment composed of a raked platform strewn with tea-stained silk and leaves, in which video projections, programmed lighting, and occasional sound effects filled the space. Within this environment, Eiko & Koma performed for seven hours a day--during regular Museum hours--for the duration of the month-long exhibition. In conjunction with this exhibition, a public dialogue was held between Eiko & Koma and Matthew Yokobosky, who was the Curator of Film and Video at Whitney Museum of American Art through Spring, 1999, and is currently Exhibition Designer, Brooklyn Museum of Art. This talk was transcribed by Leslie Ava Shaw, then edited by Matthew Yokobosky and Eiko & Koma.]

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YOKOBOSKY: You first began working in the medium of movement in the early 1970s in Japan. How did you both come to this medium?

EIKO: The only thing I remember is at some point Koma and I were tired of political discussions and fighting. What remained for us was the human body and movement--which was something that was "being" to us--in the confusing late 60s and early 70s. Some of you may recall that time; it wasn't much different here than it was in Japan.

YOKOBOSKY: Koma, were you coming to movement for the same reasons?

KOMA: I believe so. I'm not Eiko, so I can't speak directly about that. And I still have some trouble understanding where our interests overlap--whether our motivations are the same or just related. Basically, I felt that I'm a physically oriented person. And I had some trouble being with friends or other people. I thought this kind of trial [collaborating with Eiko] . . . might help me psychologically . . . interacting with another person. But, I'm still trying to discover and understand.

YOKOBOSKY: So movement and art have been a way for you to engage in a dialogue with other people . . . which is the reason many artists begin to make work, especially in public spaces. In an early work Fur Seals, you and Eiko were performing on a beach.

EIKO: Yes, it was 1977, 1978. Very early. It was in Point Reyes, California. We studied the seals, and we spent a lot of time by the beach looking at the seals, dancing and then noticing that they were looking at us after a certain time. We actually jumped into the ocean with them.

YOKOBOSKY: A lot of your early movement is based on human movement and on animal movements. It goes against how choreography is usually created--often putting together a sequence of movements and repeating those movements, and so that if you were to return to that ballet, for example, the movements could be repeated or replicated. In your work, it's more intuitive and you take gliding movement or a subtle shift. These movements have developed through a response to observation, through seeing other animals, other beings in nature moving. How do you bring all of that together within the context of dance?

EIKO: In our early years, Koma and I really didn't have much contact with the dance field. We did not invest much of our time in dance studios. When we came to America in 1976, I really took no more than ten classes in dance. We never worked under any other choreographer other than each other. We never paid to learn other people's vocabulary. It was never an interest for us to learn a vocabulary that could make us into modern dancers. But we were often interested in the same subject matter as other dance professionals and with that interest a sense of experimentation and of...