Yasuko Yokoshi

Biography

Yasuko Yokoshi was born in Hiroshima, Japan and lives and works in New York City. She has received commissions for directing and choreographing from P.S.122, Danspace Project, The Kitchen, Dance Theater Workshop, the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Théâtre de la Ville (France), Festival a/d Werf (Holland), Festival Sommer SIZEN (Austria), and Frascati Theater (Holland). Awards include a 2009 Guggenheim Fellowship, 2008 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Fellowship, a 2007 BAXTen Award, and two New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards (2003 and 2006). Yokoshi is a curatorial adviser at the Kitchen and also serves on the board of directors of Movement Research.

“Zero One,” which was made three years ago and has toured Japan, was also Ms. Yokoshi’s first work created and presented in that country. Usually, she said, she thinks of her dances as a way to translate Japanese culture for American audiences.

The duet for the twins is abstract: Ms. Yokoshi incorporates gestural movement and plays with speed and slowness in unison sequences in which the dancers perform a version of an American jazz dance and a traditional Japanese dance. She quickly decided, though, that presenting just the dancers wouldn’t be enough to sustain the piece. “To make a dance about twin sisters — so what?” she said. “I thought: I have this film. Wouldn’t it be amazing to put the two together? ”