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On the Boards: What Is War


  • On the Boards 100 W Roy Street Seattle, WA, 98119 United States (map)

October 9-11, 2025
Thursday, October 9 | 8pm*
Friday, October 10 | 8pm
Saturday, October 11 | 8pm

* Covid Safe(r) Seating available

Dance luminaries Wen Hui and Eiko Otake create a complex tapestry of language, movement, and video to share their personal memories related to war.

Wen Hui (b.1960) is Chinese and currently working in Europe. She grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. Eiko Otake (b.1952) is Japanese and lives in New York. She grew up in post-war Japan. Both are female performers/choreographers, and filmmakers.

In January 2020, Eiko visited Wen Hui in China for a month. It was where the artists began examining the personal memories they hold in their bodies. The pandemic obliged the artists to continue their dialogue at a distance. The process of co-editing a feature-length documentary film, No Rule Is Our Rule, that documented their time together in China, led them to work together physically in the U.S. to co-create this new performance work. During creative residencies at Duke University, Colorado College, and Mass MOCA, the collaborators also uncovered and learned new knowledge about war that continues to affect them deeply.

In this project, Wen Hui and Eiko Otake create a complex tapestry of language, movement, and video to share their personal memories related to war. As they move together, their bodies intimately support and absorb each other’s stories, inviting the audience to consider their own relationship to war on both a historic and personal scale.

On the Boards
Link to Event

Earlier Event: September 25
Duke Arts: What Is War