Scorched earth

You arrive at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and, if there’s a crowd, wait in a line that snakes through the lobby before you’re ushered into an elevator, twelve people at a time. When you reach the 6th floor, you can leave your coat on a rack before entering a very different kind of space created and inhabited by the Japanese-born dance/installation artists Eiko and Koma for the New York premiere of Naked: A Living Installation.

Step past a canvas wall decorated in black feathers and sand adhered to the fabric by sweet rice paste. Like a birder’s observation blind, it has some peep holes you can use to view the scene inside, but you will also find two entrances.

Your first impression on seeing the two nude performers reclining on a mound of scorched straw, feathers and sand, surrounded by a moat of brown earth might be that they look like chicks in a nest, not only pitiably vulnerable but actually dead with flesh resembling stone mounds or dried fish. Just a few feet away, audience observers stand, or sit on the floor or the few benches, in a respectful hush.

Clumps of what appears to be blackened seaweed dangle overhead and, in varying intensities, water drips from above from time to time. The space feels damp, smells of a post-fire forest or sand dune. A far, faint fog horn sounds. Lighting gets alternately stronger or weaker as time passes.

Watching carefully, you notice the bodies’ minute shifts, the way you might take note of the slightest shift of the leaf of a tiny plant on the forest floor as you pass close by. You might see Koma reaching for Eiko, his back muscle's micro-movements eventually carrying him close enough to make contact with Eiko who is very still, eyes sometimes closed, sometimes half-open and glazed.

It might be, in a moment of illumination, you suddenly realize that, with his feet resting against her ankles, and now his fingertips gently touching hers, their bodies form a circle.

Naked: A Living Installation--part of Carnegie Hall’s JapanNYC Festival and presented in partnership with Asia Society and Danspace Project--continues through April 9 in BAC’s Studio 6A, Tuesdays-Fridays 6pm-10pm and Saturdays 3pm-9pm. Admission is free, and you are invited to come any time during open hours and stay as long as you’d like. Reservations are encouraged: Click here. You can bring drawing and writing materials, but photography and videotaping are prohibited. Also, be sure to visit Studio 6B to view examples of Eiko and Koma's media work.

Information

Baryshnikov Arts Center
450 West 37th Street (between 9th and 10th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)