Gobbledygook (2010)

Inspired by the Japanese folktale Jugemu (made famous by the Rakugo performance tradition and later echoed in the popular 19698 children's book Tikki tikki Tembo by Arlene Mosel), the curiously anthropophagous ramanga or (“blue bloods") of Madagascar, and the gaki (or “hungry ghosts") found in Buddhist mythology, Gobbledygook is a duet for an American dancer Adam Weinert and Japanese dancer Eikazu Nakamura incarnating an imaginary version of the Buddhist segaki ritual concerned with personal atonement and easing the suffering of the wandering dead. The work, set to a sound-score by David Griffin, with costumes by Andrew Jordan, Carol Binion, and Christopher Williams and lighting by Amanda K. Ringger, premièred at Dance New Amsterdam from May 3rd-6th, 2010