What traces does the violence of war leave on the body and on the collective memory of future generations? What is War emerges from the encounter between two artists whose lives are, in different ways, shaped by the same historical violence: choreographer Wen Hui, who grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution, and dancer and artist Eiko Otake, a child of postwar Japan.
The work unfolds as a deeply personal duet, developed through extensive research on the so-called “comfort women”, victims of trafficking and systematic abuse by the Japanese military during the Second World War. From this historical core emerges an interplay of dance, video and text that becomes a meditation on memory, trauma and the enduring effects of historical guilt.
Through the dialogue between individual experience and collective history, the two artists turn their attention to the present and its unresolved fractures. In a time marked by new wars and global crises, What is War brings back into focus the fragility of human life, while affirming both its vulnerability and irreplaceable value.

31 July; 1 August h. 18
Teatro Piccolo Arsenale