Save the Date! CRS is honored to collaborate once again with La Mama Etc., this time to present Megumi Eda’s solo dance theatre work “Please Cry” as part of the La Mama Moves! Dance Festival. The performances will take place the weekend of April 25 – 27, 2025 at La Mama Etc.
“Please Cry“ was inspired by the story of nurses who, after years of being made to feel that crying during war was shameful, were finally allowed to cry on the day the war ended, when life-or-death decisions had to be made.
During the creative process, Megumi Eda reflected on conversations with her own grandmother, also a nurse during the war, and how these untold experiences shape family histories. Living in Berlin, Eda realized that the trauma of war is not just a thing of the past, but an enduring legacy passed down through generations, like an unbroken chain.
The piece contrasts female memory with the male perspective through a prologue by performer Tomoya Kawamura, whose grandfather narrowly escaped death as a kamikaze pilot during World War II. In collaboration with composer Reiko Yamada, contemporary dance and live music intertwine to create a powerful narrative.
Concept, Performance, Video: Megumi Eda
Performance: Tomoya Kawamura
Composition, Sound: Reiko Yamada
Language: Japanese/English
Length: 45 min
“Please Cry” was previously a co-production by Megumi Eda and DOCK ART funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and premiered at DOCK 11 in Berlin.
Megumi Eda is a dancer and filmmaker. Her career started with the Hamburg Ballet when she was 17, and over the next 15 years she went on to join the Dutch National Ballet and the Rambert Dance Company where she worked with many choreographers. In 2004, she moved to New York as a founding member of Armitage Gone! Dance. She has also collaborated with Yoshiko Chuma as a Performer/Filmmaker. Her current focus is on combining dance with film and video to create live online performance art. She moved to Berlin in 2019. “Please Cry,” co-produced by DOCK ART, presented in Fall 2022, was her first solo performance in Berlin using this hybrid approach. Megumi is also co-creator with Yuko Kaseki of Divine, a dance theatre work commissioned and developed with support from CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing). Divine was inspired by tragic tales of wronged and resilient women such as Giselle from ballet and the classic Japanese Kaidan ghost story “Oiwa” and has been presented throughout Europe.