Responders

ⒸSakiko Nomura

Teita Iwabuchi

Born 1980 in Kanagawa, Japan. After studying theater, butoh, and traditional Japanese dance, Iwabuchi performed with Ko Murobushi. Since 2005, he has been presenting choreographies that focus on "the structure of the human body" and "the interaction of space, music and the human body". Since 2010, he has been presenting experimental works on the relationship between the body and music with musicians such as Yosio Ootani and Shuta Hasunuma. He also actively collaborates with creators in the fields of animation and modern art. His Hetero, co-choreographed with Kaori Seki, won the French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographer for the Yokohama Dance Collection EX 2012. Iwabuchi established his method "Reticulate Bodies" inspired by biology and brain science. Dance Base Yokohama Resident Artist.

ⒸTHE NOHGAKU PERFORMERS' ASSOCIATION

Koji Takabayashi

Born in Kyoto in 1935. From his infancy, he was trained only by his father, Takabayashi Ginji. In 1971 he became a Kita school Noh actor as a profession. Since April 1982, he has continued the disclosure performance “Kita School, Yousen Noh” with permission of the Kita school Noh Kyoto, which has a tradition of 400 years, and he has been making efforts to popularize Noh, maintain the tradition, and foster successors. His first stage was “Asukagawa” as Ko-kata, a child role (1938). He played three important Noh — “Sotoba Komachi”(1998), “Oumu Komachi”(2009), and “Obasute”(2012) — all three are included in Roujo-mono (an old woman appears as a protagonist). In 2016, he retired from dancing as Shite after performing “Eguchi”. Since 2017, he has participated in research projects including “Yvonne Rainer Performative Exhibition” at the Kyoto Art Theater Shunju-za. The 28th Saika Award, Best dancer of March 2023 by "Dance Times" critics.

Jun Tsutui

Director, playwright and the leader of Osaka-based performing arts collective dracom. He received the Kyoto Art Center Award of Performing Arts in 2007. dracom has participated in Sound Live Tokyo 2014, NIPPON PERFORMANCE NIGHT (2017, 19, Dusseldorf), Tokyo Festival 2019 World Competition, and others. Besides dracom, he directed Seeping Life (2017, Dance Box) and was also in charge of spatial design for Lully Shabara's Raung Jagat: Voices in a Row of Polar Colors (KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2021). He has also participated in works by Zan Yamashita, Ishinha, akakilike, AKUMANOSHIRUSHI, Ho Tzu Nyen.

Ⓒbeaborgers

Ayaka Nakama

Nakama is a dance artist based in Kobe, Japan. She began her career as a dancer and in recent years she has been actively focused on the creation of her own works. She has collaborated with a dramaturg on three of her own works, including "Freeway Dance" which premiered at Dance Box in 2019, has since been presented at Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama 2020 (TPAM 2020), Kyoto Experiment 2021 Spring, Kunstenfestivaldesarts (2021) and Center Pompidou (2021) among others. In 2022, she won the 16th Kobe Nagata Culture Encouragement Prize. She is a Saison Foundation ‘Saison Fellow I’ from 2022-2023.

Mihoko Watanabe

Born in Tokyo in 1987. She works in the regional cultural development department at the public theatre, while in the evenings and on holidays she works as a playwright. She is also the mother of a one-year-old child. She holds a BA in Theatre Arts and an MBA from the Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University. In her artistic practice, she explores what elements relate to actors, audiences, communities and landscapes. She has created "NAMETE SAWAGU" in which the performers invite the audience to walk to the lake; "Lose something if you want to travel" in which the audience exchanges their personas; and "EL LUGAR IMPOSIBLE" in which a performer sells diagrams of a dancers' bodies during rehearsal. Her dramaturgy credits include "KAC Performing Arts Programme 2018/ Contemporary Dance City I" and "Statement: Archive Dancers."