Performing The History of A Body in Places

Since their first meeting in 2004 at Wesleyan University, dancer and choreographer eiko otake and photographer and historian william johnston, a historian of disease, public health, and environment in Japan, have, as of this publication, co-taught four semesters of a course on the history of the atomic bomb in Japan at Wesleyan University, and have traveled together to Fukushima four times. They have now also now presented over sixteen exhibitions of their collaborative project, A Body in Places. What follows is a dialogue about their work together. As johnston says to eiko in their conversation below, "You and I have talked a lot over the years, but as our collaboration deepened talking became less necessary." At times, it seems that bill really can read eiko's mind. eiko inserts a comment in a draft-stage document: "PHOTO OF ME DANCING LIKE KAZUO OHNO." Out of the tens of thousands of images they have created together, she trusts bill to know which that image is. In 2017, eiko began a new phase of their project together with the Body in Places—The Met Edition. Introducing the new element of video, she performed pushing a cart projecting a seven-anda-half-hour-long video that she created for each of the three locations of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met Fifth Avenue, the Met Breuer, and the Met). Such new phases once again prompt eiko and johnston to enter into new discussions.

Dialogue foregrounds their process of co-creation. While a Body in Places began as a dance project, the photographs by Johnson take on new life in curated exhibitions or publications, long after Eiko's live performance. These images are created together, and Body in Places is both a dance project and photography series. The photographs are not merely "representations" capturing an ephemeral performance that would disappear unless caught on camera. Instead, they are world-making practices in action, as Eiko and Bill choreograph and photograph ways of knowing together. Bill writes, "in the process of our collaboration both of us have been influenced by the other. Eiko has changed the way I see possibilities of placing a body in a landscape or other environment in a particular historical context with the goal of evoking a particular reaction from the viewer."¹ In turn, Eiko says to Bill: "You observe many details that I do not even notice until I see your photos. I understand now how close observation is necessary in order to frame the objects thoughtfully." Eiko and Bill's conversation for this journal is now the second in a growing record of published dialogues between the two—they have more planned.²

These documents trace their collaborative process as it develops and changes over time. They also highlight contrasting opinions and diverging perspectives. For this iteration, the conversation takes the topic of "performing history" as a starting point, as they discuss A Body in Places. Eiko is the dancer, and Bill is the historian/photographer. But their discussion makes it clear that they share in the work of performance and the making and chronicling of history. "Performing artists work for 'now,' but by doing so they create history," says Eiko. Bill adds, "In a way, we are always history performing itself. It is what makes the study of history so compelling to me. What we are is a culmination of many historical forces, major and minor, all coming together in the ever-changing present." This conversation took place over several afternoons at Wesleyan's College of the Environment during which they talked over the subjects included here, and then edited their transcribed conversations to make a whole. As it took shape in the late spring and early summer of 2018, it too became a document of dialogue and change that took place over dozens of email messages, phone calls, and meetings.

—Miki Kaneda

william johnston/

Since so much of our collaborative work together unfolds as a kind of dialogue, although not always in words, it seemed to me that it would make sense to write...