Eiko on Stage.(Review)(Brief Article)

Eiko on Stage

by Eiko Ishioka Callaway Books, 224 pp. $90

At first glance, Eiko on Stage looks like egotism turned loose in an indulgent publisher's office. Who would spend almost $100 on a coffee-table book of set and costume designs, even those of this renowned Japanese designer? Yet the most cursory second glance at the cover image -- the seamed red-leather armor worn by Jennifer Lopez in The Cell -- suggests that perhaps Eiko's work really merits the treatment. A follow-up riffle through the stiff, hand-stitched pages confirms that no production expense was spared, and furthermore that the money was well spent. In fact, the book is ravishing.

The format is simple: explanatory text and photographs of nine projects that range from a multimedia art installation at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis to the costumes for the film Bram Stoker's Dracula. Unpretentious first-person narrative explains the designer's involvement in each project -- from stage direction to production design -- and how she approached each challenge. Reading between the lines, one gets the impression that she is visionary, demanding, sometimes impractical. For M. Butterfly, for instance, she designed a kimono embroidered with thirty different shades of gold thread. A large, tack-sharp photograph, ...