inkWorks
available
for tour
"each of its simple elements is deeply thoughtful and apt, from Sheila
Antonia Bosco's spine-tingling soundscape to Allen Willner's fog-drenched
lighting to Cassie Terman's poetic fragments... the real intrigue of "Milk
Traces" is in the tiny, ever-so-intentional gestures, and in Iova-Koga's
astonishing acts of self-puppetry. At one point, with Iova-Koga somehow
contorted into a ball, his arms move with such deliberate individuality
that they look like worms sprouting from an eerily headless torso. Later,
when he slips inside a coat hanging from another rope (a body for this
soul-in-waiting to inhabit?), his physical sleight of hand really does
make it appear that the coat is a ghost about to possess him."
"Yuko Kaseki
and Shinichi Iova-Koga, the Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire of Butoh, come
together in inkBoat's Ame to Ame (Candy and Rain)... under the direction
of fellow choreographer and lighting designer Marc Ates.
Time speeds up and then slows, the greed of sleep gives way to the gallantry
of concern, and childlike play and sexual prowess whirl around fleeting
contacts between bodies and personalities. Such contrasts and more are
beautifully managed throughout, frequently with humor either wry or raucous.
The couple waltz drunkenly to the end of time, a final song sending somber,
wistful lyrics washing over them. Words become inarticulate notes, rising
in pitch, expanding in power (opening up a yawning space between the lovers),
and dissolving into an undulating wall of music built steadily upward,
tsunami-like, only to be brought crashing down again – as now two
fading points of light circumscribe two alien but remembering bodies –
in a chilling, howling vortex of sound."
~Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian, Aug 2004
A performance-collaboration by the Rova Saxophone Quartet and dance collective inkBoat (featuring dancers Shinichi Iova-Koga and Yuko Kaseki, interactive media designer Eric Koziol, director Ernie Lafky and lighting designer Allen Willner).
"Onion
is a half trembling, half laughing affirmation of self, embracing history
and mortality.
In this existential landscape, the dancers, with an exacting and flawless
technique, effectively limn ineffable states of consciousness with precise
gestures and flashes of genuine humor that catch one completely off guard.
Onion combines various performance techniques, including Butoh and improvisation,
in a deceptively simple, thematically rich narrative advanced largely
through movement and the lush ambient score. A vivid yet nearly wordless
work of unusual subtlety and force."
~Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian, Jan 1 2003