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Eiko unites art and academics

Eiko Otake often uses the word “infiltrate” to describe her work with the Center for Creative Research, and for good reason. The CCR, established at Wesleyan just last year, is slowly but surely developing into an important resource for students and professors who wish to explore the applications of art in academia and vice versa. Independent of any academic department on campus, the CCR is an experiment fueled by a curiosity about the relationship between artists whose work is not neatly described as that of a professor or performer.

Eiko, one half of the professional dance company that is Eiko and Koma, is one of 11 choreographers who are the founding members of the CCR. Their interests span artistic genres. Although they are movement artists, the CCR project is dedicated to the creative arts and research as a whole. The CCR aims to connect the artists with academic institutions in order to build a mutually beneficial and sustainable relationship. Ideally, this relationship will help to change the dynamic between artists and the campus communities.

“[We asked] ‘Are there any other ways artists can have our own tables with an agenda?” Eiko said. “Can we […] start to learn from having our own agenda and having our own place and means to connect to others?”

“Life is always more than making art and by expanding life we will also expand our own art,” she added. “Furthermore, can we create an interesting and a longer relationship to explore ourselves and others in an academic environment? Yes…That’s the CCR’s main mission and adventure.”

Wesleyan is not alone in helping the CCR in its first endeavor. Dartmouth and the University of Maryland are also hosting CCR artists, allowing the program to experiment in different academic environments. Of the three colleges, Eiko personally chose Wesleyan as her site with the assurance of commitment from the CFA and administration. It is unusual that an artist would stake out and choose a location for such an in-depth project, and it is this assertiveness of artists that distinguishes the CCR from other programs in the filed.

“This is radical because usually [the] producer chooses [the] artist […] because you are inviting the artist for teaching or a performance,” Eiko said. “By all means, I have initiated this program…so it’s very funny, you know, because I walk around and people say ‘what are you doing here?’ and I say, ‘I invited myself.”

Most recently Eiko held a workshop sponsored by the CCR, entitled “Delicious Movements.” The workshop explored movement for the sake of movement with a particular emphasis on “deliciously charged” space and time. Workshop attendees spent much of the time on the floor using a slow movement vocabulary that is at once deliberate and lacking superficial intention. It’s an exercise in bodily awareness that is completely accessible, regardless of experience in dance or performance.

Emily Klasson ’06 was an integral part of organizing not only “Delicious Movements” but all of the CCR’s campus events thus far. As the CCR intern, Klasson acts as a student liaison, an absolute necessity for the CCR’s ongoing “infiltration” of the Wesleyan campus. Klasson’s work with the CCR and Eiko sets a precedent for student contribution to the CCR, a factor essential to its success on the host campuses. Klasson works closely with the CCR artists, students, and professors in an environment out of the classroom and departmental setting, a feature that points to the ultimate goal of uniting each group.

“One thing I would want to stress is that this is interdisciplinary,” Klasson said.

“The idea that you can have dance students, architecture students, history students, science students all in a room together moving and talking, whatever. That’s a huge part of what the CCR is trying to do, and that’s what will happen in the years to come.”

The CCR’s impressive start at Wesleyan has laid the groundwork for an enhanced bond connecting different areas of study with art as the common denominator. Eiko foresees an even greater purpose as an inspiration to other campuses and communities.

“Every academic institution of progressive thinking should and could design and create its own structure that will involve various artists and independent thinkers and doers as a part of a liberal arts education,” Eiko said.

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