Kei Takei

Kei Takei is a dancer and choreographer who emerged as a significant force in New York dance from the late 1960s through the 1980s. She founded Kei Takei's Moving Earth, later known as Moving Earth Orient Sphere, drawing on early training in Tokyo that encompassed folk dance, ballet, and Japanese classical dance before she developed her own experimental practice.

Takei's most celebrated work is her *LIGHT* series, an ongoing sequence of spare, repetitive rituals that began with her 1969 New York debut. By December 2022, the series had reached Part 54, making it a decades-long choreographic continuum that has grown continuously since its inception. The work combines her Japanese and Western training with ritualized, earth-focused contemporary performance. In 2018, New York audiences saw a presentation that paired Part 44, *Bamboo Forest*, with a 1974 solo from Part 8, demonstrating how Takei links autonomous solo and group works across the span of the series.

Takei has performed in her own work as both choreographer and dancer. A 1990 recording of *LIGHT, Part 5* documents her dancing alongside other performers at Musashino Art University, preserving her contribution to the ongoing evolution of the series.