Eiko

What Eiko and Koma do onstage is difficult to describe accurately. These Japanese-born artists have been acclaimed by dance critics across the United States and in Europe, but their performances are hardly dance in any traditional sense. Instead, they enact mysterious rituals, set in desolate dreamscapes. Little happens, and yet this couple--Eiko is the woman and Koma the man--manage to elongate time.

As Japan's preeminent graphic designer and art director in the 1970s and early '80s, Eiko Ishioka helped build her reputation by heading media campaigns for Parco, a major boutique shopping complex chain. But instead of focusing on fashion or other merchandise in ads, promotional posters and commercials, Ishioka sold Parco to the public with attention-grabbing, often sensual visual images. In one 15-second spot, a silver-haired British rake nonchalantly tosses his champagne glass overboard and makes his move on a dainty young Japanese woman.

It's a time of change, yet she can't seem to rouse herself from stasis. On campuses and in the streets of 1968 San Francisco, people are challenging old ways of doing things. Beautiful, volatile Eiko, however, has just married the safest guy around and, though just back from her honeymoon, is already miserable. "You're bored, aren't you?" a gentleman friend of the family asks through a creepy, Cheshire Cat-like grin. Yes, but the conflict goes much deeper.

Eiko & Koma: 'Regeneration' Where: REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles When: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $25-$30 Information: (213) 237-2800 or http://www.redcat.org

At a time when American modern dance has grown dangerously balleticized--obsessed with formal structure, technical display, star glamour and the body beautiful--a generation of Japanese artists is embracing a dark alternative vision. Called butoh , this uncompromising postwar movement to represent a type of experience increasingly excluded from dance expression has been glimpsed by local audiences in the work of Eiko and Koma, Min Tanaka, Kei Takei and others.

In a rocky cavern deep within the Earth, two figures slowly stir in the darkness and reach up into thick masses of air roots that block the sky but refract brightness from above. Wearing robes that match the colors of their environment (white for the woman, red for the man), they sightlessly feel their way toward the light, and that light becomes their partner in the haunting life-cycle that is Eiko and Koma's "When Nights Were Dark."

Eiko & Koma: 'Regeneration' Where: REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., Los Angeles When: 8:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, 3 p.m. Sunday Tickets: $25-$30 Information: (213) 237-2800 or http://www.redcat.org

Isolated in pools of light and puddles of water at opposite sides of the stage at the Ford Theater on Saturday, Eiko Otake and Koma Takashi reached out, staggered and collapsed violently, their naked bodies dripping and glistening as they strained to realign arms or legs, to master weight and arise. . . .

Downy feathers float from the ceiling to the stage of Schoenberg Hall a few at a time, forming a carpet that gleams like fresh snow yet continually drifts and eddies like sand under the sea.

Reporting from New York High above the city, with a clear view of the icy streets below, the illustrious choreographers and dancers Eiko and Koma began a recent morning in their midtown apartment deciding what photographs should go into a new book about their work, soon to be published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It complements their current tour's "Regeneration" program, which comes to Los Angeles this week. Since the early '70s, Eiko and Koma have created bold, almost still, theatrical works of elemental power.

Reporting from New York High above the city, with a clear view of the icy streets below, the illustrious choreographers and dancers Eiko and Koma began a recent morning in their midtown apartment deciding what photographs should go into a new book about their work, soon to be published by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. It complements their current tour's "Regeneration" program, which comes to Los Angeles this week. Since the early '70s, Eiko and Koma have created bold, almost still, theatrical works of elemental power.

It's a time of change, yet she can't seem to rouse herself from stasis. On campuses and in the streets of 1968 San Francisco, people are challenging old ways of doing things. Beautiful, volatile Eiko, however, has just married the safest guy around and, though just back from her honeymoon, is already miserable. "You're bored, aren't you?" a gentleman friend of the family asks through a creepy, Cheshire Cat-like grin. Yes, but the conflict goes much deeper.

For the past two months, Cirque du Soleil's "Varekai" has been performed beneath the bright blue-and-yellow tents in front of downtown's Staples Center, the acrobats in costumes as bright and bizarre as the mystical world they inhabit. But those jagged edges and spiked points that lend a dangerously thrilling look are anything but dangerous.

In a rocky cavern deep within the Earth, two figures slowly stir in the darkness and reach up into thick masses of air roots that block the sky but refract brightness from above. Wearing robes that match the colors of their environment (white for the woman, red for the man), they sightlessly feel their way toward the light, and that light becomes their partner in the haunting life-cycle that is Eiko and Koma's "When Nights Were Dark."

On the phone from her New York apartment, Eiko Ishioka answers a question with a question. "How do you look at my world?" she asks. Ishioka, an artist-designer whose work ranges from advertising to art films, Hollywood costumes to installation art, says the question is central to all her work. Throughout her career, her purpose has been to coax--often jolt--people out of their preconceived perspectives. "You have to examine how you are looking at me and what values you bring," she said.

Downy feathers float from the ceiling to the stage of Schoenberg Hall a few at a time, forming a carpet that gleams like fresh snow yet continually drifts and eddies like sand under the sea.

As Japan's preeminent graphic designer and art director in the 1970s and early '80s, Eiko Ishioka helped build her reputation by heading media campaigns for Parco, a major boutique shopping complex chain. But instead of focusing on fashion or other merchandise in ads, promotional posters and commercials, Ishioka sold Parco to the public with attention-grabbing, often sensual visual images. In one 15-second spot, a silver-haired British rake nonchalantly tosses his champagne glass overboard and makes his move on a dainty young Japanese woman.

For the past two months, Cirque du Soleil's "Varekai" has been performed beneath the bright blue-and-yellow tents in front of downtown's Staples Center, the acrobats in costumes as bright and bizarre as the mystical world they inhabit. But those jagged edges and spiked points that lend a dangerously thrilling look are anything but dangerous.

What Eiko and Koma do onstage is difficult to describe accurately. These Japanese-born artists have been acclaimed by dance critics across the United States and in Europe, but their performances are hardly dance in any traditional sense. Instead, they enact mysterious rituals, set in desolate dreamscapes. Little happens, and yet this couple--Eiko is the woman and Koma the man--manage to elongate time.

At a time when American modern dance has grown dangerously balleticized--obsessed with formal structure, technical display, star glamour and the body beautiful--a generation of Japanese artists is embracing a dark alternative vision. Called butoh , this uncompromising postwar movement to represent a type of experience increasingly excluded from dance expression has been glimpsed by local audiences in the work of Eiko and Koma, Min Tanaka, Kei Takei and others.