Speakers: Yoshiko Chuma, Ryuji Yamaguchi

Moderator: Safak Ersozlu

 

The artist talk, where we will talk about the creative and productive adventures of artists with Yoshiko Chuma and Ryuji Yamaguchi, opens up a space to evaluate the risks and opportunities in the field of art through The School of Hard Knocks experience.

 

The artist talk, where we will talk.

 

k2 Performance address : Cumhuriyet Bulvarı No: 262 Alsancak-İzmir

 

 

Ryuji Yamaguchi, choreographer, dancer, and educator, lives in Madaba, Jordan since 2007. Working extensively with Yoshiko Chuma and the School of Hard Knocks since 2003, Ryuji was creative producer and assistant director for 9 major School of Hard Knocks productions in Jordan and Palestine. Ryuji is also the founding director of Midan: Amman Dance Lab. Through creative projects, workshops, and microfunds, Midan brings Amman’s dance community together, particularly across different socioeconomic classes and languages. www.midandance.com

Photo credit: Robert Flynt

 

Yoshiko Chuma (conceptual artist, choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand in the post-modern dance scene of New York City since the 1980s, has been consistently producing thought-provoking work that is neither dance nor theater nor film nor any other pre-determined category. She is an artist on her own journey, a path that has taken her to over 70 “out of the way” countries and collected over 2000 artists, thinkers and collaborators of every genre since establishing her company in New York City in 1980. The School of Hard Knocks was founded as a company of diverse backgrounds. Its purpose is to create, perform, encourage and sponsor experimental and multi-disciplinary and multi-media work. The School of Hard Knocks is an ongoing phenomenon—its shape as diverse as the situations the company performs in—from street performances to formal theatre/dance concerts to large scale spectacles. Company activities include an annual New York season, ongoing development and rehearsal of new works, and performances/residencies and collaborations with local artists on tour throughout the United States, East and Central Europe, Asia, Middle East, and South America. Over the course of the company's history, more than 2000 people have performed under Chuma's direction. Notable international performers have been involved in the School of Hard Knocks over its 40 year history.