BIO
Eseohe Arhebamen is a poet, dancer/choreographer, mixed-media artist, musician and performance artist. Born in Nigeria, raised in Detroit City and currently residing in New York, Eseohe’s artworks reflect a diversity of cultures and the interrelations of media. Eseohe Arhebamen’s works are heavily influenced by traditional Afrikan Theater and her study of Butoh. Since immigrating to the United States, Eseohe has won several awards for her artworks. She has performed or shown work internationally in Africa, America and Asia.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT
Media-generated synesthesia. A series of physical movements becomes a relationship between musical notes or the emotional temperature of the environments in a video. I am not interested in making sense. I have spent many years studying the construction of language. I now have an obsession with undoing language. (Stop speaking.) I began my career as a poet and a writer; now in my work, I am written . (Be spoken.) I am a black Afrikan woman. I was born in Nigeria. My grandmother is the Princess Nodumwenben Osazuwa. My great-grandfather had forty wives. I have witnessed exorcisms and possessions. There are many worlds in coexistence, many spirits named Eseohe Arhebamen. I am a madhouse of characters that put on rainboots and go stomping outside in bad weather. We are not interested in sanity. I work in multiple media- poetry, plays, music, video, dance, painting and sculpture. My creations exist on multiple levels of meaning; there are internal dialogues between the different media. For example, a poem and a video may be in collusion in one of my performances, mocking the lexicon of my physical movements. A puppet of my own making. For the purposes of liberating my Primitive body from your minds, I am showing how life began.

CV
Performance Works

2009
Garnerville Arts Center (GAGA) Gallery presentation, “Fire Butoh 3″ with visuals/ video installation, West Haverstraw, NY
GiSCA-PALOOZA special salon second viewing and discussion, “The N Word”, Columbia University- Teachers College, NY
“Goodbye”: imnprovisational vocal performance with violin, electric guitar, Valentin-Stueberl, Berlin
K-Salon: Solo Dance Performance, “Fire Butoh 3″, Berlin
Impovisational vocal collaboration with Malys/contrabass for KoPAS, SQU’ART, Berlin
International Printer & Performance Festival- improv outdoor vocal performance
Dance Solo @ Theater Kapelle, Friedrichshain, Berlin
Two park performances outside Czentrifuga: “Blue Butterfly Butoh”, Berlin
Opening Parade from Bullenwinkel to Czentrifuga (Berlin Kreuzberg), Berlin
Improvisational “Spiritual dance and Offerings” performance involving Rachel Hoffman, Orion Maxted, The Rubens, KoPAS, Saskia Edens and Chelsea Wolfe- Naive Art Museum, Riga, Latvia
Videofestival presentations in Central Library, Parnu
Peformance Congress, Parnu Art Hall, Parnu
Dance solo with video projection/installation, “Fire Butoh 3″, Parnu
Video premiere and moderation, “The N Word”, GiscaPalooza, Columbia University Social Justice Program, New York, NY
Body/sound/movement collaboration with Rachel Hoffman, “The Cave”, Tartu
With NONGRATA, “Seedless Brain”, Culture Factory Kultuurikatel, Tallinn
Writers House, Poetry reading and performance, “eAIR Butoh”, Tallinn
Diverse Universe Festival, Estonia
Sound and poetry performance at the Nigerian Consulate, New York
Studio Session, Improvisational Groupworks for Live Video, FMT, Long Island, New York
Soundcollaboration with Sinuhé Padilla Isunza, Brooklyn, NY
La Tierra Prometida, Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, New York
Number 18, a dance choreography for two homosexual men with video projections by wetcircuit, New York, NY
eAIR Butoh sketch, Forward Motion Theater, New York
Facebook Blonder Battle with Rachel Hoffman: an on-line performance, New York-Florida, USA
East Village Radio Interview, New York, NY
The Cement Factory, a film collaboration with FMT, Long Island City, NY

2008
NON GRATA (Not Wanted) performance, Leo Kesting Gallery, New York, NY
Group performance directed by Anonymous Boh: “How to make a performance”, Seoul, Korea
Korea Experimental Arts Festival, Seoul, Korea
Guilty, an improvisational collaboration with Sato Yukie and Steve Vanoni, Seoul, Korea
The Cement Factory, an improvisational musical collaboration with Eric Shieh, Harlem, NY
How Far? a group performance choreography, Monkeytown, New York, NY
Performance Fundraiser for Peace / a benefit for Michigan Peaceworks, New York, NY
Ophelia, a synesthetic dance choreography experiment, New York, NY
Thompson Square Park: Guerilla Butoh, New York, NY
DanceLab: Osemwegie-Ehigiator Osazuwa Lexy, Theatre Art / Masscommunication Dept., Nigeria
University of Benin: Artistic Co-Director, Igodomigodo, Edo State, Nigeria
Art is Life on Jesus Christ Road, Edo State, Nigeria
Seeking My Beloved Spirit After Twenty Years I Return Home, Lagos, Nigeria
Oliva: Drums & Percussion with Peter Davis Barr, New York, NY
Performance production series: Edoheart presents, New York
self-propelled machinemusik, soundcollaboration with Toshio Kajiwara, Brooklyn, NY
Chaos Diffluens with Fred Pinault, Jonathan Shorr Gallery, New York, NY
Es Su Casa, Jonathan Shorr Gallery, New York, NY
A Birthday Party for Taje & Eseohe, Jonathan Shorr Gallery, New York, NY
Fire Butoh 2 with visuals by Mariette Papic and the Zuvuya Collective, Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, NY

2007
Fire Butoh 1, Hunter College, New York, NY
The N Word, a documentary film work with Jay Bachhuber, New York, NY
Debut Evening / Midweek Music Mixer Mash, TenEleven, New York, NY
Us Up On the Moon, an interdisciplinary project with Jessica Jackson, Brooklyn, New York

2002-2006
Storytelling, Wingspan Arts, New York, NY
Martin Luther King Day music presentation with Luke Winslow King, Bronx, New York
Musical collaboration series with Maggie Smith, Brooklyn, NY
Wide Open Floor, University of Michigan Theater Department, An Arbor, MI
Poetry and Fiction Writing Workshops with Maria Christoff, Ann Arbor, MI
Music performance with NOMO / opening for The Wailers, The Majestic, Detroit, MI
Environmental Justice Initiative Poetry Slam, Ann Arbor, MI
College Unions Poetry Slam, Cincinnati, OH
U-Club Poetry Slam Finals, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Crazy Wisdom Tearoom: Featured Poet, Ann Arbor, MI
Speaker, Take Back the Night, Ann Arbor, MI

Education
2007 B.A. Studio Art candidate Hunter College
2005 B.A. Creative Writing and Literature University of Michigan-Ann Arbor

Teaching Experience
2009 ewaBAMIJO (“Come and dance with me”), New York, NY
2009 Butoh Training Workshops for Performance, New York, NY
2008 English Language Arts Tutor, Hamilton-Madison House, New York, NY
2008 Butoh Training Sessions for Ophelia, Brooklyn and New York, NY
2007 Art Instructor & Storyteller, Wingspan Arts- P.S. 40 & P.S. 183, New York, NY
2006 Poetry Instructor, Dr. White Community Center, Brooklyn, NY
2004 English Language Arts Tutor, Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon, NY
2003 Tutor, The Pro-Testers, Inc., Brooklyn, NY
2002 Poetry and Fiction Teacher, Stewart Elementary School, Detroit, MI

Awards
2006 Poet of the Day, Poets Against the War
2002 Writer-in-Residence, InsideOut Literary / Arts Project, Detroit, MI
2002 Environmental Justice Initiative First Place Award, University of MI
2002 College Unions Poetry Slam National Champion First Place, OH Invitational
2001 University Of Michigan Hopwood Award (Poetry)
2001 Arthur Miller Award (Fiction), University of Michigan
2000 Jeffrey L. Weisberg Memorial Prize (Writing), University of Michigan
1998 Residential College Fellowship, University of MI

Publications
2009 Diverse Universe Performance Explosion 2005-2009
2008 Korea Experimental Arts Festival Catalog with Artist Interviews
2006 The Hopwood Awards: 75 Years of Prized Writing, University of Michigan Press
2006 Softblow Online Poetry Journal
2006 The Yellow Elephant, Volume #1
2006 The Hudson Press, Issue #1
2003 Poets Against the War
2003 Seeding the Clouds, Ornithology Press

PERSONAL STATEMENT
My name is pronounced S-ay-aw-heh. I am an Edo. Of the Edo peoples, my mother is Bini and Étsako. My father is Ésan.

I have been making art for as long as I can remember. In Nigeria, for a child to make things is nothing out of the ordinary as the economics demands that one be capable of entertaining, instructing and feeding oneself. So I have always made little things that I hoped would come into an existence of their own after I made them. I began reading at two years old and I believe that this early introduction into the world of written ideas left my mind lonely. Combined with immigration to America, it became important to stave off physical and intellectual isolation with the art things I created. The process of creation for me has remained similar to what it was in my childhood. Scientific questioning, spiritual possession and the populating of Eden drive it.

One memory that stands out in my mind is the day that an uncle only a few years older than me took me for a hunt around our village for snails. We roasted the snail inside an eggshell on a fire we made on the ground with some sticks and tinder and ate it. This experience, culinary, anthropological and alchemist remains one of the most creative experiences and important arts-instruction I have ever received.

A woman who attended my parent’s church gave me piano lessons for a month when I was about ten years old. Through this brief encounter with the structure of music, I learned that sound was another thing that could be given its own existence and come to live alongside one as a companion almost. When I hear music, I feel that there is a body occupying space beside me, something intangible but personifyable through its effects. After all, we say atoms exist although we cannot see them because we see the effects of their movements. When I listen to music, I allow myself to be directed by it, like a partner in dance or I attempt to psychologically direct the musician. I believe in communicating without speech. When I make music, it is another actualization of the world I am obsessed with populating. I desire a space that can be inhabited for a time and returned to, a room with a purpose, be it weeping or remembering.

I wrote my first poem when I was eight about my little sister and her shoelaces. I began to take poetry more seriously because my parents did not have enough money to pay for any arts-instruction further than the month of piano lessons. Poetry became theater for me and my poems are usually written for a character. That is to say, a character is speaking in each of my poems. This character can go on to exist in our world through the actualization of speaking his or her parts of the poem.

I discovered Butoh and realized that it a kindred spirit to the traditional religions, associated theater, dance and other arts that I had been experiencing throughout my cultural Nigerian life. Here was another art form that allowed, no, demanded transformation. I had finally found a way to integrate the spiritual experiences and lives that filled my culture with the world of performance. I have not been specifically trained in dance other than in Butoh training; however, this does not adequately describe my involvement with dance.

I am an Edo. My people have throughout the years developed thousands of very complicated dances that change from town to town and time to time. My father was a very talented dancer and was often chosen to dance at masquerades. His people are known for their acrobatics among the Edo. My father taught me my first dance when I was about four years old. Dance is such a part of life that all arts and communications derive something from it. Nigerian people are capable of performing certain dances that are culturally significant- various wedding walks, for example, which have associated parts that different audience members play. The environment in which I was raised is highly, extremely theatrical and subsequent to English colonialization, transmogrified aspects of English into complex wordplays found in language-proverbs and Pidgin English. Often, when a Nigerian speaks, she speaks in character. Her exact words, down to structure, have been expressed a thousand times already and have come to represent the exact emotional experience and purpose of the speaker. In certain ways, Edo people and Nigerians in general are a culture perpetually in play. This makes for complicated, witty joke structures that are impossible to explain to an outsider. Shakespeare comes close. If Shakespeare’s worlds existed with the characters using only the lines they could find in the play to interact and learning to twist the usages of certain lines and this went on thousands of years until each line became a character in itself with an entire identity of likes and dislikes, then this would begin to approximate the language-nature of Nigerian interaction.

My experience with dance is that to my people, it is one such language of expression. This use of dance extends also to the religious spheres.

When I was about five years old, my nanny was exorcised and I was forced to be part of the proceedings. Like Butoh, certain Nigerian cultures integrate the invisible and spiritual with the visible and embodied. This means that it might be expected of one to perform an impossible action in order to reveal something spiritual or otherwise invisible. In the exorcism in which I participated, in order to prove that I was not a witch, I was required to dance, spinning around and around without falling. If I fell, it would show that all was not well with my spirit. I spun for minutes and did not fall. This proving of the invisible has become a part of my performance/dance works through Butoh and continued journeys into African dance.

I began water coloring and drawing as a child. The result is that my works originate from the same spiritual world as my dance, musics and writings. My visual arts are a display of my love for color and my understanding that colors can become symbolized and active participants in an environment. For example, I believe that everyone has a unique set of colors that describe their emotional ranges. Many of my sculpture pieces decay; most are given as gifts, instigating dialogue between my artwork’s life and my audiences’ lives. My objects are made sacred through the intention with which I make them and the obsessive worksmanship that can become deeply meditative through repetitious physical movements. In this way, I make talismans, amulets, magic objects that extract from or add to the environment/person for whom they have been made. I call my paintings juju-paintings after the Nigerian word, juju, which is a spirit or witchery for good or bad.

In my video-projections, I engage in conversation with my work as a whole, fashioning or integrating details of old pieces into new so that my artwork in video is self-replicating and truly animated. In everything I seek to make the invisible visible and to magnify the imperceptible; discovering secrets that we have forgotten about ourselves.

My mother was a playwright and poet and often involved me in her work. I would read what she had written and offer my opinions. I took her work seriously. There was something about the instrument she used- a typewriter- that carried the weight of actualizations. Watching her, I believed that when a word was written, it became alive. This personification of language has influenced my obsession with my identity.

In a world dominated by the writings of the western hemisphere, to be black and African and a woman necessarily relegate one to obscurity. I am interested in being known not only for myself but also as reparations for all of Africa. I stand in solidarity with my African-American brothers and sisters. I believe in one race but also that action must be taken to achieve equality. I believe that language has such power that it must be wielded by oneself. I take pains not to allow myself to be written about without my involvement. I make works that are attempting to expand into myriad millions, the possibilities of definition of that-which-I-am-defined-by. I feel a great responsibility to the naming of Africa’s treasures. When I am performing, it is with a spirit-body that aims to show those who are willing to look a door that has been barred a long time. There are many ways of being and ART is a conjugation of the verb, “to Be”. I want Africa and Eseohe Arhebamen to BE impossibly, eternally sublime. I am creating a monument.