Yoshiko Chuma and The School of Hard Knocks: POOM²
A Page Out Of Order M to M

Thursday, May 15, 2008, 7:30 PM
Friday, May 16, 2008, 7:30 PM
Saturday, May 17, 2008, 7:30 PM

“Yoshiko Chuma is a maverick, utterly unique, a ‘one-off’ as the British say, on the stage of world dance. Her career has spanned almost 30 years and 35 countries. Her work is a mixture of play and seriousness, anarchy and reflection, and her hallmarks are collaboration and cultural exchange. Chuma cuts across categories. One might call her a postmodern choreographer, a movement designer, or a visual artist whose primary medium is human beings—dancers, musicians, pedestrians. She is unusually alive to space and landscape, indoors or outdoors. Gifted with great personal force and intelligence, at heart she is an experimentalist, a fierce explorer with a profound sense of structure.” -- Amanda Smith, Dance Magazine, 2007 

Yoshiko Chuma

Yoshiko Chuma ©.

Yoshiko Chuma is the artistic director & choreographer of The School of Hard Knocks, USA and of the Daghdha Dance Company, Ireland. Born in Osaka, Japan, she has lived in the United States since 1978. Chuma has created more than 50 full-length company works, commissions and site-specific events for venues across the world, which challenge the notion of performing for both audience and participant. Her work has been presented in New York in venues ranging from the Joyce Theater to the legendary annual Halloween Parade; and abroad in such locations as the former National Theater of Sarajevo, the perimeter of the Hong Kong harbor and at an ancient ruin in Macedonia.

Chuma has received fellowships and awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Japan Foundation, the Meet the Composer Choreographer/Composer Commission and Philip Morris New Works. She received a Bessie award in 1984 and was awarded another in 2007, for “her sustained achievements in quizzical explorations of cultural resonances...” Chuma has led workshops and master classes throughout Eastern and Western Europe, Asia, Russia and the US.

The School of Hard Knocks

The School of Hard Knocks ©

The School of Hard Knocks [SOHK] is an award-winning collaborative effort of choreographers, dancers, actors, singers, musicians, designers, and visual artists working under the artistic direction of Yoshiko Chuma. Founded in 1984, The School of Hard Knocks was also the title of the company's first production, a collaboration between Yoshiko Chuma, filmmaker Jacob Burckhardt and musician Alvin Curran, which was presented at the 1980 Venice Biennale.

Since the company began, more than 1,000 people have performed in theatrical dance concerts to street performances, parades, large-scale spectacles and intimate Living Room Projects, Chuma's signature program which brings postmodern music and dance performance to homes, businesses and community centers. Living Room Projects have been performed in homes in Budapest, a car show room in Nagoya, and gardens in the East Village of New York City.

The company creates and performs works during their annual New York season, and on tour in the United States, Asia, and Europe, with a particular focus on Eastern European countries, including Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, the Baltic Republics, and Bosnia. In the last five years, The School of Hard Knocks has made a commitment to offering young dancers from Japan international exposure and opportunity.

SOHK collaborations include: Tan Dun (Nine Songs, Jo Ha Kyu), Lenny Pickett (Human Voice), Alex Katz (Eager Witness), Christian Marclay (Five Car Pile-Up), Elizabeth Murray (A boy, a beer, and a blonde), Yvonne Jacquette and Nona Hendryx (The Big Picture), Mark Bennett, Robert Een, Aska Kaneko (Unfinished Symphony and most recently Nagoya Suite) in Japan.

The School of Hard Knocks has been supported by: National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, Mary Cary Flagler Charitable Trust Live Music for Dance, Philip Morris, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, The Jerome Foundation, AT&T Foundation, ArtsLink /CEC International Partners, Arts International FUND for US Artists at International Festivals and Exhibitions, Saison Foundation, the Japan Foundation/Japan-US Performing Arts Program, Asian Cultural Council, Soros Open Society Institute, The Trust for Mutual Understanding,The Japan/US Friendship Commission, Lila Wallace Funds/Arts Partners Grant through Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church for the Living Room Project.

The School of Hard Knocks received Bessie Awards in 1984, 1995, 1998, and 2007.

Tickets: $28/$25 Japan Society members. Purchase tickets online above or call the Box Ofice at (212) 715-1258.