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Eiko Otake & Wen Hui: What Is War?

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September 25 - September 26
von der Heyden Studio Theater

Presented by Duke Arts Presents

Photo Credit: Jingqiu Guan

“[What is War?] left me almost speechless and it haunted my thoughts through the night.”

LA Dance Chronicle

“This was/is life-changing art.”

Fjord Review

“Two fearless women claiming their agency sharing embodied truths.”

John Killacky

Created and performed by Eiko Otake (of Eiko & Koma) and Wen Hui (of Living Dance Studio), What Is War is a powerful collaboration that fuses movement, video, and personal testimony excavated from the artists’ recollections of war and its aftermath. Otake grew up in post-war Japan and Wen grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution. Friends since 1995 and working closely since 2020, Otake and Wen explore the enduring impacts of war on human consciousness, collective memory, and the body.

Duke Arts is proud to welcome back Eiko Otake and Wen Hui to Duke, where they developed this performance work in part during a two-week residency with the Duke Dance Program in collaboration with American Dance Festival (ADF) in the spring of 2024.

Please note: What Is War contains nudity and addresses the subject of war.

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Single Tickets Available Tuesday, June 17.

Production Credits

Conceived, Choreographed and Performed by
Eiko Otake and Wen Hui

Dramaturg

Iris McCloughan

Lighting Design by
David A Ferri

Commissioned by the Walker Art Center. Co-commissioned by UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance (CAP UCLA), Jacob’s Pillow, and Colorado College Theater & Dance Department. 

What Is War was made possible by the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

About The Artists

Eiko Otake

Born and raised in Japan and a resident of New York since 1976, Eiko Otake worked for more than 40 years as Eiko & Koma, performing their own choreography. Since 2014, Eiko has been directing her own projects. In her solo project A Body in Places, Eiko has performed numerous site-specific works at over 70 sites.

A Body in Fukushima records Eiko‘s solo performances in post-nuclear disaster Fukushima. In her Duet Project, Eiko has been engaged in an open-ended series of cross-disciplinary experiments with a diverse range of artists. Her 10-year project, I Invited Myself, is a series of exhibitions and screenings of her media works. Her films, including the documentary No Rule Is Our Rule co-directed by Wen Hui, have also been screened in many film festivals.

Eiko Otake’s Website | Instagram | Facebook

Wen Hui

Chinese choreographer and dancer Wen Hui is one of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary dance. She also makes documentary films and installations. For the past thirty years, Wen Hui has been using dance theater as a means of social intervention.

In 1994, Wen Hui co-founded the first independent dance theater group in China, the Living Dance Studio, in Beijing. Since 2008, she has been researching the body as a form of personal social documentation and experimenting with how bodily memory can catalyze the collision between history and reality. In 2021, Wen Hui received the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, known as the Goethe Medal.

 

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Photo Credit: Jingqiu Guan

When
  • Thu, Sep 25, 2025 at 7:30pm
  • Fri, Sep 26, 2025 at 7:30pm
Estimated Run Time
1 hour, no Intermission
Where

von der Heyden Studio Theater
2020 Campus Drive
Durham, NC 27708

Venue Details
Ticket prices
  • $25General Admission, Advance
  • $30General Admission, Day Of
  • $10Students*
Notes

Content Warning: What is War? contains nudity and addresses the subject of war.

Pick-4 & Save! Save up to 20% when you book four or more shows at once! 

Duke employees save 25% on single tickets. 

*All high school and college students are eligible for student tickets with valid ID shown at event. 

Duke students and employees, Log in through Shibboleth to access Duke-exclusive discounts. 

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