Eiko & Koma's non-narrative of loss and love

Walking into Walker Art Center on Thursday evening, I half-expected to nod off, ever so slightly, at Eiko & Koma's latest show, "Hunger." After all, the Japanese-American duo built their reputation on glacial, almost imperceptibe movements across a stage, their whitened faces etched with elemental feelings.

But this premiere in the McGuire Theater -- a venue that is showing its potential -- turned out to be revelatory, both of the duo's work, which has been seen several times at the Walker over the years, and of butoh, the artistic style that inspires Eiko & Koma.

Butoh was revived after the atomic bombs detonated over Japan in World War II. In its offshoots in visual art, performance and film, butoh often presents a kind of mourning ritual for the moment of nuclear impact, with faces that are obliterated by white chalk and with a presentation of grief and dislocation.

Those themes ripple through "Hunger," which begins with Eiko and Koma naked and upside down against a fence, as if blasted there. The elemental show has no narrative; its ritualistic movement suggests a sharp need for sustenance. Moving slowly like shell-shocked war refugees, Eiko and Koma nibble at a white matter that covers the stage and resembles pulverized packing material.

But the hunger in the show's title is generalized. As they focus attention and concentration in their every belabored move, Eiko and Koma suggest also the need for companionship and love, for meaning, purpose and clarity. At times, Koma confuses Eiko's naked body with food, dipping his mouth in the foam-style fluff that covers the stage one moment, then going, again ever slowly, for Eiko's nipple.

"Hunger" has a lot of lyrical, evocative images. Sometimes Eiko seems like a bird that's dying, her mouth open and silent, resembling "The Scream."

Eiko and Koma have inducted two young Cambodian performers into their movement vocabulary, which may be apt now that Cambodia is emerging from its own historic horror. Charian and Peace, as they are called, do not have the same sort of magnetism as their elders. And the youngsters, who appear at first without makeup, seem like pretty lead performers who are miscast (whereas Eiko and Koma are characters living in the moment).

But as they paint ravens on a floor drop, they offer a nubile kind of hope in this stage poem to the ravages of grief, confusion and loss.

Rohan Preston • 612-673-4390