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ARTIST INFORMATION
The Crazy Cloud Collection (World Premiere)
Choreography
Ko Murobushi & Shinichi Iova-Koga
Lighting Design
Allen Willner
Composers/Musicians
Shahzad Ismaily
Matthias Bossi
Carla Kihlstedt
Realization & Performance
Ko Murobushi
Shinichi Iova-Koga
Dana Iova-Koga
Sherwood Chen
Ikkyu Sojun/Crazy Cloud
Also known by his nickname, Crazy Cloud, Ikkyu is considered one of the most significant and eccentric figures in Zen Buddhism. Monk, poet, musician, vagabond, iconoclast - a mutual fascination with Ikkyu is what first brought Ko and Shinichi together. But, one may ask, what does a 15th century monk named Ikkyu Sojun have to do with our time now? Ikkyu was a boisterous and audacious figure. He broke from the stifling and petrified ceremony of the time, seeking his own truth. His poetry is renowned for its irreverent and straightforward insights into the ironies of the human condition.
The artists will pull from the accounts of Ikkyu's existence, which range from academic and historical texts to a popular contemporary children's manga series Ikkyu-san, as well as from his poetry. They will mine the extremes of Ikkyu's light and dark natures. Through the prism of Ikkyu's life and writings, the artists will examine a contemporary world seriously out of balance-financially, ecologically and, some might say, morally. How will the artists hold a meaningful, multi-lingual, multi-cultural conversation among different mediums? In many ways, they become living poems. Their practice of translation/communication is a transformation of the space within the body, expanding and informing the life of the dancer. In the same way that Ikkyu broke through barriers to reach himself and others, the artists intend to crack open some widely held ideas that exist within contemporary society to expose oft ignored but universal truths that were as relevant to Ikkyu's 15th Century world as they are to ours in the 21st Century.
inkBoat
Founded by Shinichi Iova-Koga in 1998, inkBoat is a performance company built by and with the collaborative efforts of choreographers, dancers, musicians, visual artists, directors and actors. Working in fractured, filmic, delicate and decayed environments, inkBoat's performance style is a hybrid of traditional and experimental dance and theater forms weaved with Physical Theater and Japanese Butoh Dance. All collaborators are independent visionaries that assemble according to project parameters. Members of inkBoat live in San Francisco, Berlin, New York, Tokyo and Seattle. The group constellations range from 1 to 15 members performing in Europe, Japan and North America at dance festivals, street festivals, ocean-sides and theatres.
Funding Credits
The Crazy Cloud Collection has been funded in part by the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, with lead funding from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Additional funding provided by the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation; the Maggie Allessee National Center for Choreography; National Endowment for the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Special thanks to Ko Murobushi's management-Kaibunsha and Z Space
ARTIST BIO'S
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