COMPANY HISTORY

Early in 1968 Kei Takei began working at the Henry Street Settlement, a fountainhead of progressive dance in New York for over half a century. There she found some congenial souls responsive to her concepts and direction. The following year, this loose, tentative company burst upon the public at the Dance Theatre Workshop in a short composition titled "LIGHT." In 1975 Kei formed a permanent company incorporated under the name "Moving Earth." It comprised 12 dancers with another dozen performers available for special performances.

Kei's now famous appearance at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1975 displayed the full company in a 7-hour marathon of "LIGHT, Parts 1-9." To celebrate the 11 years since the first composition of "LIGHT," the company in 1981 performed "LIGHT, Parts 1-15." The occasions here and abroad lasted 11 hours.

Today, Moving Earth has comfortably settled into an informal, loosely knit organization comprising some 14 performers, including a few carryovers from the first introduction of "LIGHT" to the world in 1969. The Company represents a cross-section of ability and attainment and come from countries as far away as Peru or Japan or China and Israel, Germany, Canada and Spain as well.

Kei is always asked one question: "Why Moving Earth?" She has no answer. The earth moves; and dancers move. This is as good an explanation as any, although MOVING EARTH, INC. still finds messages on its answering services sometimes asking for bulldozers, cherry- pickers or other trucking services.