Open Rehearsal: “π=3.14… Ramallah-Fukushima-New York-Maracaibo. Endless Peripheral Border” by Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks — 11/15

On Friday, Nov 15 at 7 pm, CRS (Center for Remembering & Sharing) invites you to an open rehearsal of “π=3.14… Ramallah-Fukushima-New York-Maracaibo. Endless Peripheral Border” by Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks. Guests will preview a dance sequence performed by Miriam Parker, Rebeca Medina, and Kensaku Shinohara and are invited to discuss the work with the artists afterward. The rehearsal and discussion will last about 90 minutes and is free but a donation of $15 to support the work is suggested.
Now created for four performers — Parker, Medina, and Shinohara plus one local dancer and one musician who will join the cast in Venezuela — this latest iteration in the π=3.14 series, heretofore shown only in intimate venues, is being prepared for performance in an 800-seat venue as part of the Festival Internacional de Danza de Maracaibo on Nov 29, 2013 in Venezuela. The work continues to intentionally confuse documentation with history, recreating steep segments from Chuma’s own documented events in Ramallah, Fukushima, and Bogota. From this material, she assembles a mosaic of dancers, images, filmed interviews and musical selections whose content has the effect of framing theater with barbed wire. 
“When you meet other cultures, you focus on how different you are, but eventually you realize that you are not so different. Creation begins by looking at that gap. And that gap was what made me an artist.” — Yoshiko Chuma, Founder of The School of Hard Knocks

Photograph by Kit Fitzgerald from the latest “π=3.14…” series presented at La MaMa La Galleria in Jul 2013
Pictured:   Mina Nishimura
 
YOSHIKO CHUMA (artistic director & choreographer of The School of Hard Knocks, USA and artistic director of the Daghdha Dance Company in Limerick, Ireland from 2000–03) was born in Osaka, Japan and has lived in the United States since 1978. Chuma has created more than 45 full-length company works, commissions and site-specific events for venues across the world, constantly challenging the notion of performing for both audience and participant. Her work has been presented in New York in venues ranging from the Joyce Theater to the legendary annual Halloween Parade; and abroad in such locations as the former National Theater of Sarajevo, the perimeter of the Hong Kong harbor and at an ancient ruin in Macedonia.Yoshiko Chuma is the recipient of several fellowships and awards, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, Japan Foundation, Meet the Composer Choreographer/Composer Commission and Philip Morris New Works. She has led workshops and master classes throughout Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Russia and the U.S.
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Nov 2013157 pm