Yoshiko Chuma by Deborah Jowitt published: June 10, 2009
Yoshiko Chuma's "Not About Romanian Cinema: POONARC." Ayumi Sakamoto
Yoshiko Chuma & the School of Hard Knocks
Danspace Project at Saint Mark’s Church 131 East 10th Street 
866-811-4111
June 4 through 13, 2009
“NOT ABOUT ROMANIAN CINEMA: POONARC”
“Chuma considers herself a citizen of the world, and she turns a penetrating and concerned eye on societies in turmoil and on the depredations of war. Some of her earlier pieces investigated the tensions between life in the U.S. and the postwar Japan she grew up in. She has developed pieces in Bosnia, Macedonia, and Transylvania, among other places, and presented them in various forms. For the last month, she and her performers have been traveling through Romania. In each place, she collaborates with new performers, filmmakers, and musicians. Dancing barely appears in some of these works, yet you watch them as if you're peering into an untidy, unstable, volatile world of motion, where something can explode at any minute. The shreds of peace and understanding that Chuma looks for are so fragile that weaving them together might be dangerous. Like dancing on a volcano's rim.”
