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Eiko Otake

Part-time Faculty
eikootake@gmail.com
1 Wash Pl, Room 716

Office Hours
Tuesday 4-6
Thursday 4-6

B.A., Literature, SUNY Empire State College, 2001
M.A., Individualized Study, New York University, 2007

Born and raised in Japan, Eiko Otake is a New York-based, movement-based interdisciplinary artist and performer who, from 1972 until 2014, worked with Takashi Koma Otake in the performance duo Eiko & Koma. They performed in theaters, museums, and outdoor sites worldwide, including American Dance Festival, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Kennedy Center, the Walker Art Center, and the MoMA. Eiko & Koma were honored with two New York Dance and Performance Awards (“Bessie” Awards), two Guggenheim fellowships (1984), a MacArthur Fellowship (1996), the Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award (2004), the first United States Artists Fellowship (2006), the Dance Magazine Award (2006), and inaugural Doris Duke Artist Award fellowships (2012). Walker Art Center published a comprehensive monograph of their works, Eiko & Koma: Time is Not Even, Space is Not Empty (Walker Art Center, 2011).   Using movement study as a means of inquiry along with readings and media studies, Otake has taught interdisciplinary college courses about the atomic bombings and other environmental issues at Wesleyan University, Colorado College, and UCLA. Otake’s solo project will be the subject of the 10th annual Platform titled A Body in Places, a month-long curated program of Danspace Project in New York City to be held February 20-March 20, 2016.  

Performances, Productions, Exhibitions & Releases

2022

Eiko Otake Featured in New York Times and New York Magazine

MA Alumna and Gallatin faculty member Eiko Otake (MA ’07) was featured in the New York Times article, “Bill T. Jones and Eiko Otake: Opposites Guided by ‘Too-Much-Ness’.” New York Magazine called Otake’s performance series at NYU Skirball, The Duet Project: Distance is Malleable, “visionary” and included it in the “highbrow, brilliant” quadrant of their Approval Matrix.

2021

Eiko Otake (MA ’07) Performed “Slow Turn”

In honor of the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Eiko Otake (MA ’07) performed “Slow Turn” in Battery Park City, a new piece that centers on Otake’s memories of that day and its aftermath.

Teaching and Research Interests

movement installation; contemporary performance; dance for camera; public art; dance archive; atomic bomb  massive violence  and atomic bomb literature; nuclear plants  Fukushima meltdowns and environmental disasters; post war Japanese film and literature   

Recent News

Eiko Otake  (MA '07) was awarded a 2016 Special Citation from the Bessie Awards for her A Body in Places platform, for "making herself 'radically available' in public and private spaces over several weeks, actively engaging with pressing political and environmental issues of our time."  

Eiko Otake