Can Movement Be Delicious?

Guggenheim, MacArthur and McKnight Fellow and award-winning choreographer and dancer Eiko Otake will visit Drexel to present her signature movement style in a lecture on “Delicious Movement as a Way of Knowing” on Thursday, Oct. 16, at 7 p.m.

Using video and imagery, Otake will introduce and explain the philosophy of Delicious Movement as a quiet, slow-paced, creative practice available to everyone who is interested in learning more about themselves and the world around them through the introspective, quiet and conscious experience of their own body.

“Delicious Movement is designed for all people who love to move or who want to love to move with delicious feelings, or anyone who is interested in motivational and structural aspects of the creative experience,” said Otake. “It’s an invitation to experience time and space differently.”

Otake also teaches Delicious Movement in an extended workshop version in communities, colleges and art schools. She developed the series as a noncompetitive training suited for all level participants. The workshop is grounded in specific movement vocabulary and includes compositional and performance techniques, images, body articulation and floor work. It intends to increase body awareness, focus, coordination and stance.

A short version, the lecture, will be presented by the Westphal College Dance Program and will take place at Drexel’s Mandell Theater (33rd & Chestnut streets) at 7 pm on October 16. The event is free and open to the public.

Otake, a Japanese-born and New York City-based performer and choreographer, is one of the creators of Eiko & Koma, the unique and riveting theatre of “movement out of stillness, shape, light and sound.” Together with her husband, Koma Otake, they have created interdisciplinary performances focused on human conditions, philosophy and politics and presented their work at theaters, universities, museums, galleries and festivals worldwide, including numerous appearances at the American Dance Festival, BAM’s Next Wave Festival, Whitney Museum of American Art, Walker Art Center and MoMA in New York City.

They are also recognized for their site-specific performances including Battery Park near Ground Zero, churches and temples, rivers, parks, and currently 30th Street Train Station in Philadelphia where she presents a series of performances every Friday in October. For a full schedule, click here.