CHALLENGING BOUNDARIES THROUGH DANCE
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new dance production performed at King’s Academy marks 15 years of creative collaboration between the school and internationally acclaimed artist Yoshiko Chuma.
BY MUNA AL-ALUL
For the past 15 years — almost as long as King’s Academy’s doors have been open — Yoshiko Chuma has been traveling to Jordan to host one-of-a-kind dance workshops for King’s students. An internationally acclaimed artist and choreographer, Chuma is also the artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks, which she established in New York City in the 1980s.
Working alongside her longtime protégé and creative collaborator Ryuji Yamaguchi, King’s Academy’s dance program coordinator and dean of residential life, Chuma has been offering King’s students the unique advantage of her tutelage, as well as the opportunity to participate in one of the many dance productions the pair have created together and performed in Jordan and Palestine.
Known for producing thought-provoking work that is neither dance nor theater nor any other pre-determined category, Chuma has been described as a “firebrand in the post-modern dance scene of New York City.” Her work has taken her to over 40 “out of the way” countries and brought together over 2000 artists of every genre. Thanks to her longstanding commitment to King’s Academy over the years, some 32 international artists have followed in her footsteps and visited King’s to host artistic workshops for its students.
Chuma’s own “brain to bone” workshops at King’s have helped students acquire a better awareness and understanding of their movements, how to refine those movements and, in turn, to consider how they can develop their consciousness through movement.
“My artistic concerns are individuality, integration and reinvention,” says Chuma. “I allow artists to retain their individual existence and ask them to look inside themselves and at their surroundings to find a different path of expression.”
In their latest collaboration with King’s Academy, Chuma and Yamaguchi created and co-directed a new dance production entitled Endless Peripheral Border that was performed in January at the school with the participation of around 50 students and faculty members as well as a number of professional musicians and dancers from Amman.
A second performance of Endless Peripheral Border also took place in Amman, produced with Midan Dance Lab, at which Yamaguchi and King’s student Kenzy AlDaher ’23 performed alongside 20 professional artists at the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts.
“Endless Peripheral Border can be described as a whirlwind of an experience,” says Yamaguchi. “The performance invites the audience to visualize the theme of
“Borders — physical or imaginary — separate the experiences between those on the inside, those on the outside, and those who may travel between them,” explains Chuma about the performance’s concept, adding: “I always use many props in my creations; for example, the performers used red trays as an image to deliver stories — perhaps to deliver images of war, or each person’s secret journey.”
Chuma and Yamaguchi have collaborated on some 10 productions in Jordan and Palestine that address the themes of borders, conflicts, identity and stories, with Endless Peripheral Border being the latest.
Commenting on the King’s community’s positive reaction to the production, Yamaguchi said: “It was refreshing for the audience to see us challenge conventional boundaries of performances, with the audience traveling through the campus, and by having them witness up-close performances by a diverse cast of dancers representing different styles including contemporary, hip-hop and breakdance, as well as vocalists and musicians.”
borders and their impact, with dancers performing together in a ‘choreographed chaos’ that displays the hopes and despair that our world faces today.”
Gathered in front of the Hess Family Dining Hall, where the performance at King’s started out, some 150 audience members were witness to a spectacle of 50 performers creating dynamic movements in the air by waving large colorful bags, accompanied by two professional vocalists and an oud player. The audience, led by the performers, was then taken on a long promenade across campus, eventually arriving at The Gallery, where the second part of the performance took place.