July 6 @ 6:00 pm

A Conversation & Performance with Eiko Otake & David Harrington

6 p.m. Cemetery as a Place for Art and Reflection:
Public talk with Harry Weil, Vice-President of Education and Public Programs, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY

Preceding the With the Dead performance, this a public talk will draw attention to cemeteries as contemplative and complex sites in which history, memories, community, and artistry converge. Harry Weil will converse with Evergreen Cemetery Director Cheryl D. Godbout and Dianne Hartshorn representing Heritage Evergreen.

Cemeteries are places of memory and contemplation, where a community’s stories and histories lie, where we are reminded of our mortality. During the pandemic, Eiko performed in two cemeteries to reflect on and converse with the dead.

You can’t really come to the cemetery and not think about death or the people who have died. We know more about living. But we all die. I thought that performing was my practice of dying. But the practice of dying is not dying. We learn about death by attending to other people’s dying. But we also learn about death by missing the dead. —Eiko Otake

7 p.m. With the Dead
performance

As Eiko Otake’s six-month exhibition at the Fine Art Center at Colorado College nears its closing on July 30, Eiko will return to Colorado Springs with David Harrington, the artistic director and founder of the world-renowned Kronos Quartet. Their long-time friendship is matched by their international recognition as some of the most notable performing artists working today. With the Dead is an adaptation of Otake’s 2020 performance at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Colorado Springs community members and former students of Eiko will join these two distinguished artists in their performance at the historic Evergreen Cemetery so we can collectively reflect on dying and the dead.

I dance thinking about the recent dead, and the dead from the past centuries, including many whose graves were never built. —Eiko Otake

8 p.m. Reception

Eiko and David will talk with audience members and participants.

In celebration of Otake’s solo exhibition I Invited Myself, vol. II, the Department of Theater and Dance at Colorado College is hosting a series of two-day events in the Colorado Springs community.

All events are free and open to the public.

The Historic Evergreen Cemetery
Link to Event