In this essay in Issue 15 of Danspace Project’s Journal, I reflect on Joan Jonas and Eiko Otake’s unique and historic collaborative performance and installation, Drawing in Circles WHY (an experiment), presented at the Castelli Gallery in partnership with Danspace Project. Please read an excerpt below, or read or listen to the full piece on Danspace Project’s website.

Eiko and Joan move curiously but without hesitation, with purpose yet without any insistence on a particular narrative. Through this focused, inquisitive work, the importance of serious playful experimentation emerges. Eiko and Joan, though each with remarkable and established styles and identities cultivated over decades, are instructive in how to keep experimenting wholeheartedly.