Cutting-edge choreographer, director, instigator, movement-explorer, and performer Yoshiko Chuma continues a lifetime obsession with the mythology of danger. Landing in New York in 1976, Chuma settled in lower Manhattan, then labeled a dangerous place. Devoid of the culture and inflation you see now, Yoshiko managed to begin her career in lower Manhattan, spanning an impressive 45-year career to date. Creating over 100’s productions, including company works, commissions, and site-specific events, Chuma constantly challenges the notion of performance for both audience and participants. Crossing physical and metaphorical borders, Chuma has placed herself in danger’s way for the sake of art. She has crossed the border between East and Central Europe in the early 80s to 90s, the border to Palestine for over 10 years since 2005, the border between Albania and Kosovo in 2007, the border to Afghanistan in 2014, and the border to Maracaibo, Venezuela in 2014, among many more. Forbidden realms for some but centers of creation for Chuma, these visits challenge preconceived ideas of danger and have brought about some of the most beautiful experiences. Chuma intentionally confuses documentation with history, recreating segments from her documented events. She never gives herself boundaries or lets them interfere with her work. Making art is not her intention at all; all her efforts are oriented toward giving performances that have never been seen before. Having received no formal dance training, she pursues spontaneous and experimental techniques and methods of construction. Her creative process begins with a single movement (dance) or abstract image conveyed to her filmmaking pattern. She once presented a crumpled piece of drawing to her team and requested a single movement that expressed similar qualities. Project after project, year after year, she upends conventional notions of dance and disrupts accepted characteristics of performance. Her performances not only stand apart from the genealogy of dance but also resist definition and confound interpretation – endless peripheral borders.
