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2011inkEvents

December 2,3,4: LINE BETWEEN, at ODC, San Francisco
INKBOAT AND ODC THEATER PRESENT THE WORLD PREMIERE OF LINE BETWEEN

WHEN:
December 2 @ 8pm
December 3 @ 3pm and 8pm
December 4 @ 7pm

WHERE:
ODC Theater 3153 17th Street San Francisco, CA 94110

TICKETS:
$17 Students, Seniors $20 General $30 Arts Patrons

Buy Online Now at
https://www.openrangeweb.net/hosts/odctheater.org/tickets/buy.php or
Call 415-863-9834
Box Office: Wed-Sat 12-6pm
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE VISIT:
odctheater.org

choreography and performance by Shinichi Iova-Koga & Dohee Lee
direction by Dana Iova-Koga
music composition and performance by Jason Ditzian & Suki O'Kane
yukigo Peiling Kao
set design, installation & drawings by Amy Rathbone
lighting & stage design by Allen Willner
construction & stage design by Frank Lee

ODC Theater 3153 Seventeenth Street, San Francisco odctheater.org

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, October 28, 2011 – ODC Theater is pleased to announce the world premiere of inkBoat’s Line Between, a duet between inkBoat founder Shinichi Iova-Koga and performance artist Dohee Lee. In Line Between the two artists put their exquisite physicality to use in a work about the liminal place between waking and sleeping where the rules of one reality dissolve into the other.
InkBoat has been making innovative dance theater works since 1998, both in the U.S. and abroad, and is widely regarded to be one of the most important voices in contemporary performance. With life partners Shinichi and Dana Iova-Koga at the center of an ever shifting constellation of collaborators, inkBoat travels regularly between San Francisco, Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Seattle, performing works for the stage and the street.
In Line Between Dana has taken on the role of director, leading performers Shinichi and Lee through a “dynamic and electric” rehearsal process. Korean shamanism (an integral aspect of Lee’s study and practice), usage of “chance operations” (à la John Cage and Merce Cunningham), directed improvisation, conversations with neuroscientists, study of dream analysis, and mining the content of their own dreams are some of the tools they have used to research and develop this evening-length performance work.
“Line Between is about horror and also about hope,” says Lee. “I am very interested in how dreams can affect real life...how you can collaborate with your dream to make it happen. So when people talk about something being ‘a dream come true’, the dream is true. But when you’re in your dream there are no obstacles, and you can go further than you can in real life.”
In tandem with the blurry line between the “real” world and the “dream” world are cultural lines that can seem at times opaque and at other times yielding and permeable. At one point in the performance Lee dreams she is Edith Piaf, but she’s singing not in French but in Korean. Shinichi’s dream world conjures the image of Johnny Cash, but he too is translated -- perhaps out of recognition. Why do celebrities populate our dreams? What do they signify in another language, in another place and time? Line Between approaches these questions with a mixture of humor and portent.
Joining the collaboration is percussionist Suki O’Kane and multi-wind instrumentalist Jason Ditzian. Their music -- blending electronic, South East Asian, and found object resources -- “functions more as an installation than a score,” says Shinichi, “adding a spatial dynamic to the dance that is intensely rewarding. The music has its own geography.”
Installation artist Amy Rathbone and architect Frank Lee have designed an intricately elaborate set transforming ODC Theater, lit with surreal panache by Allen Willner. And serving as yukigo, the traditional Japanese stagehand dressed all in white, is Peiling Kao. Using movement, sound, light, and installation, Line Between’s team of artists have together created a breathing landscape evocative of that elusive mind-state we inhabit in the moment that falls between waking and sleep. Just so, the lines between art and ritual, artist and intercessor, physical and spiritual, contemporary and ancient are revealed to be fleeting shadows under the sun.

(photo by Pak Han)

2012 inkEvents

March 6,7: LINE BETWEEN, at Vancouver International Dance Festival
choreography and performance by Shinichi Iova-Koga & Dohee Lee
direction by Dana Iova-Koga
music composition and performance by Jason Ditzian & Suki O'Kane
yukigo Peiling Kao
set design, installation & drawings by Amy Rathbone
lighting & stage design by Allen Willner
construction & stage design by Frank Lee

April/May 2012: "THE CRAZY CLOUD COLLECTION", at Highways (Santa Monica), San Francisco International Arts Festival, The Painted Bride (Philadelphia) and Arcata Playhouse.

"The Crazy Cloud Collection" results from the intersection of Ko Murobushi, recognized in Japan as a leading inheritor of Hijikata’s original vision of Butoh, and Shinichi Iova-Koga, whose aesthetic balances between the known and unknown, improvising image within and without the body. Together, these artists invite the ghost of Ikkyu, a 15th century monk known for provocative, biting and unorthodox poetry, to share the stage with them.

Co-Direction by Shinichi Iova-Koga and Ko Murobushi
Performed by Sherwood Chen, Dana Iova-Koga, Shinichi Iova-Koga and Ko Murobushi
Music composed by Carla Kihlstedt, Matthias Bossi and Shahzad Ismaily
Set by Frank Lee
Costumes by Currie Leggoe & inkBoat

The presentation and tour of "The Crazy Cloud Collection" was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts' National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and additional funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.  Additional tour funding comes from Performing Arts Japan, a program of Japan Foundation.

"The Crazy Cloud Collection" is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund/Forth Fund Project co-commissioned by Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica in partnership with San Francisco International Arts Festival and NPN.