“Shape of Distance,” choreographed by David Shimotakahara, is a dynamic project created in partnership with the Akron Art Museum and funded by a Knight Foundation Arts Challenge award. The Knight Arts Challenge supports artistic innovation in audience engagement. David Shimotakahara was given permission to work in response to an important piece from the Museum’s permanent collection, the magnificent Dzesi II by internationally-renowned artist El Anatsui. As part of the project, GroundWorks will connect audiences to performances of this work through its acclaimed Action/Reaction program, helping people understand and experience art forms across disciplines in new ways.

Initially part of the Akron Museum’s 2012 exhibition, “Gravity and Grace,” Dzesi II has become one of the most popular works in its collection.

“The celebrated work of El Anatsui strikes a rare combination of stunning beauty, fascinating communal process and deep metaphorical and poetic meaning,” writes curator Ellen Rudolph. “A global artist, Anatsui draws on artistic and aesthetic traditions from his birth country of Ghana, his home in Nsukka, Nigeria and various Western art forms. Anatsui’s work is about transformation. Using found materials such as printing plates, condensed milk tins and aluminum liquor bottle caps allows the artist full freedom to improvise and invent. Anatsui is also captivated by the history of use that such materials retain.”

Shimotakahara was drawn to El Anatsui’s work for many reasons. “For me it is a physically impactful work, not just in terms of its scale, but I think the many layers of associations that immediately spring to mind when you are in the presence of the work, which I found invigorating,” he says. “I loved the ideas of transformation and repurposing that are a part of El Anatsui’s thinking, the way he takes something simple and develops something layered and complex. I also completely relate the dance experience with his perspective about art. El Anatsui talks about his work as a kind of data that needs to interacted with. He is interested in the experience of others in bringing his work to life.