Association for the Preservation of Mibu no Hana Taue

Mibu no Hana Taue is recognized as both an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan and is also registered on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. This preservation society was established in 2014 to maintain and nurture the future of this tradition, including the performances of “saotome,” “sanbai,” and other performers.
Mibu no Hana Taue came about when two historical rice-planting traditions in the region, Kawahigashi no Hayashida and Mibu no Hayashida, were merged in the 1976 recognition as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan. Each custom had performance groups, Kawahigashi Dengakudan, and Mibu Dengakudan, which now work together for the Mibu no Hana Taue. Each group ensures cooperation for the performance by respecting minor differences in lyrics and drumming technique.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/hana-taue-chants-for-good-harvests

Ise-Daikagura Kosha

Ise-daikagura is recognized as an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan, and the Kosha was established to preserve it while also training a new generation of daikagura performers. Based in Kuwana in Mie Prefecture, the Kosha travels around western Japan, performing lion dances, acrobatic acts known as hokagei, distributing protective talismans, and praying to cleanse homes of bad luck. Today the organization consists of five heads, or iemoto, and each tours a particular region. After the current YAMAMOTO Kandayu became head of the Kosha, he abolished hereditary names and titles, and nepotism. He’s building a new system which updates tradition, and ensures those who qualify as daikagura performers are given the surname of their iemoto. Yamamoto also supported exhibitions at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan; gives international performances; and continues to widen his field of activities.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ise-daikagura-bringing-happiness

SHIRAGA Momoko & Lattanakone INSISIENGMAY

SHIRAGA Momoko

Choreographer, director, and dancer
Leader of the “dance-performance-esque” group Momonga Complex.
As the leader of Momonga Complex, she composes, choreographs, and directs all of the group’s works. She has earned praise for her style of creating unique spaces that actively incorporate nonsence and useless.
In 2011, she became an Associate Artist of the Cultural Centre of Fujimi City KIRARI FUJIMI, where she staged the Japanese and Thai coproduction “หลังเขา Rankao-Our forest-” in March 2018.
Her genre-bending work also includes composing and directing “Hyakumonogatari” for Deaf Puppet Theater Hitomi in March 2022.
She was the Saison Foundation Junior Fellow for Fiscal Year 2017–2018.
She has been serving as the Artistic Director of the Cultural Centre of Fujimi City KIRARI FUJIMI since 2019.

Khao Niew / Lattanakone INSISIENGMAY

Lattanakone leads the contemporary puppet theater company Khao Niew, which he created in 2008. He seeks to embody Laotian spirituality, which emphasizes coexistence with nature, through a unique approach incorporating objects such as natural materials and familiar everyday tools as well as human bodies. His works have received recognition overseas, and he has engaged in numerous collaborations with artists in France and other European countries in addition to other Southeast Asian countries. He has also given many performances and workshops in Japan.
In 2015, he began holding workshops for deaf people at the request of the Laos Association for the Deaf, which aims to promote the social participation of deaf people. In 2016, he formed the “Khao Niew Deaf” division within his theater company.
He organized the Vientiane Performing Arts Festival from 2015 to 2018. In 2022, he staged performances and workshops as part of Festival France Laos as well as a human-rights-related event hosted by PETA. In 2024, he organized the Vientiane Performing Arts Festival, for the first time since post-covid. He is currently working animation project with Trukitrek.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/asian-object-theater-laos-japan-collaboration-things-alive-from-darkness

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/asian-object-theater-work-in-progress-laos-japan-collaboration-among-deaf-and-hearing-performers

Music and Poetic Drama Laboratory (Jun Kawasaki)×Wonki Jeong

Music and Poetic Drama Laboratory (Jun Kawasaki)

The Music and Poetic Drama Laboratory produces “Eurasian Opera” through collaborations with various artists across Asia and Europe. Since 2016, it has presented three works in Japan and abroad under the direction of composer and contrabassist Jun Kawasaki. Often described as “Asian-style magic realism,” the stage productions showcase a blending of local folklore with the family histories of the participating artists, a multi-language chorus arrangement, and a fusion of multiple artistic genres.

Wonki Jeong

Wonki Jeong has created a distinct artistic world as a composer, musical director, and producer. Based in Jeju Island, he conducts fieldwork collecting soundscapes primarily from East Asia, aiming to capture the memories of individuals and communities through songs. He has developed a strong interest in diaspora while exploring the principles of cultural formation and creative transmission and the value of humanity’s shared heritage that reflects people’s everyday lives. He has also launched a new project that examines the reality of the Korean Peninsula’s division through the lives of ethnic Koreans in Japan.

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kuroshio-current-project-taiwan-yonaguni-jeju

KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre×Vanishing Point Theatre Company　

KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre

In January 2011, it opened as a venue dedicated to the performing arts, located near the main building of Kanagawa Kenmin Hall. The venue's mission is to provide three specific public services of "creation": Artistic creations, training and human resource development, and local community contribution activities.
In addition to a hall with approximately 1,200 seats and rehearsal space, it also has large, medium, and small studios suitable for use as small theatres. From April 2021, they welcome the playwright, director, and actor Keishi Nagatsuka as artistic director, they aim to become an "open" theatre in the city, creating and disseminating excellent performing arts works such as plays, musicals, and dance.

Vanishing Point Theatre Company　

Vanishing Point is a world-renowned, artist-led theatre company based in Scotland. Their aim is to create theatre that is beautiful, accessible and original. They have an international and multi-cultural perspective, collaborating with artists and producers from across the world, to create genre-defying theatre for venues of varying scales – from international stages to local village halls.　

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-origin-of-the-species-confessions-of-a-shinagawa-monkey/

Usagi Stripe / OIKE Yoko

Usagi Stripe

Formed in 2010, Usagi Stripe performs the works of OIKE Yoko. Drawing on the notion that we are all going to die eventually, they use the fictiveness of performance to depict death and everyday life as neighboring territories.
https://usagistripe.com

OIKE Yoko

Playwright, director, head of the “Usagi Stripe” company, artistic director of Atelier Shunpusha
Born in Osaka in 1986. Joined the Seinendan company led by director-playwright Oriza Hirata in April 2010. Formed Usagi Stripe in the same year. In March 2019, OIKE received the Hokkaido Drama Grand Prize in the 30th annual Land of Hope Prizes, for “Virgin Blues,” a play depicting the 'ordinary' family of two fathers and one daughter. In December 2021, received the Asian Academy Creative Award for Best Original Screenplay for the NHK drama special, “They’re Probably Gone.” In April 2024, she was appointed Assistant Professor at Nihon University College of Art, Department of Theatre. Her recent scriptwriting works include the Saturday drama "Percent" and the evening drama "Mirai no Watashi ni Bukkasareta!" (both NHK general channel).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-radiant-city/

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/everyone-should-just-die

TANINO Kurō

Born in Toyama Pref. in 1976. TANINO is leader of the theater company Niwa Gekidan Penino(Theatre of the Garden Penino) and serves as its representative, playwright and director. While amedical student, he formed the company in 2000. TANINO’s recent works include Chekhov?! (2011),The Room, Nobody knows (2012), Box in the Big Trunk (2013), Tanino to Dwarf-tachi ni yoruKantor ni Sasageru Homage (2015), The Dark Master (2003, 2006, 2016) and others. TANINO’s playAvidya—The Dark Inn that premiered in 2015 was the winner of the 60th Kishida Kunio DramaAward. He has received many awards, including Cultural Affairs Agency Arts Festival ExcellenceAward in 2016 and Toyama Prize in Arts and Culture in 2019.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/maitre-obscur

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/fortress-of-smiles

Nanako Matsumoto＆Anchi Lin (Ciwas Tahos)

Nanako Matsumoto

Born in 1992 in Osaka, Nanako Matsumoto is a dance artist who works with performance and language; both separately and in various combinations. Driven by an interest in dance as a means to critically engage with the body she creates stage works as well as writing and engaging in volunteer work as a form of public action. In recent years she has created dance works as co-leader of performance unit team chiipro; two of which have been presented at Kyoto Experiment 2021 Autumn and Kyoto Experiment 2022. Matsumoto’s performances are characterized by the use of text based on meticulous research and deal with the intersection between the physical sensations and memories of her own body and various historical, societal, anthropological, and geographical contexts. In recent years, she has been exploring the idea of a "yokai-body", a term coined by herself and defined as a state of transformation achieved by layering multiple images related to a certain place onto the body. She is The Saison Foundation ‘Saison Fellow I’ from 2023-2024.

Anchi Lin (Ciwas Tahos)

Anchi Lin 林安琪, Atayal name is Ciwas Tahos, based between Taipei Taiwan, and Naarm (Melbourne) Australia. New media and performance artist of Atayal/ Itaṟal and Taiwanese Hō-ló descent. Ciwas's body-centered practice weaves the Indigenous Atayal worldview through performance, moving images, cyberspace, ceramics, and kinetic installation to claim a self-determined queer space. Her work is an exploration of cultural and gender identity; using her body as a medium to trace linguistic and cultural experiences of displacement to seek out new forms of understanding. Ciwas’s most notable art project is "mgluw tuqiy na Temahahoi" (Finding Pathways to Temahahoi). Most recently, Ciwas was awarded the Biannual Prize of Pulima Art Award and was selected as the inaugural Artist for the Australia-Taiwan Friendship Year Arts Exchange Partnership for 2023. In 2023, their work was exhibited at the 2023 Arts Electronica Festival in Austria, the Taiwan Austronesian Art Triennial in Taiwan, and Proto-zone13 at Shedhalle in Switzerland. Ciwas completed an MFA in New Media Art at Taipei National University of the Arts (Taiwan) and BFA in Visual Art at Simon Fraser University (Canada).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sticky-hands-stitched-mountains

Sankai Juku

Sankai Juku is a butoh company founded in 1975 by its leader, Ushio Amagatsu, which began touring abroad in 1980, performing in over 700 cities in 49 countries around the world, including Europe, North America, Latin America, Asia, and Oceania. Currently based mainly in France and Japan, the company continues to present a new work approximately once every two years.
In addition to directing and choreographing, Amagatsu also comprehensively has designed the space and costumes for his works. Amagatsu has consistently considered Butoh as a "dialogue with gravity", and has received high acclaim for his approach to the universal inner nature of human beings, such as "birth" and "death".
In 2002, they received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production for their London performance of "Hibiki". In 2013, they received the Japan Foundation Award.

Official website: https://www.sankaijuku.com/?lang=en　
Reference: https://performingarts.jpf.go.jp/en/article/6951/　

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/utsushi

UMEDA Hiroaki

Since 2002, UMEDA Hiroaki's choreography has been invited around the world including Chaillot National Theater in Paris, with performances in over 150 cities in 40 countries. He was commissioned from and choreographed for festivals and companies such as GötenborgsOperans Danskompani and L.A Dance Project. His work goes beyond dance and choreography, encompassing sound, video and lighting design. In recent years, he has also produced installations focusing on physical sensation. His installations have been presented in 21_21 DESIGH SIGHT, NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] and many other international festivals around the world.
UMEDA has been the resident choreographer of Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No.1 for two years from 2022.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/holistic-movement-design-documentation-of-hiroaki-umedas-international-tour

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/median

Seharada Daidai-Kagura Preservation Association

The shishimai is one of Japan’s most popular folk dance traditions, and the Seharada Daidai-Kagura Preservation Association is one of over 200 organizations in the city of Nagano working to preserve it. The local shishimai in Seharada is believed to have been passed down by performers deeply rooted in the faith of Ise Shrine about 200 years ago. By the 1960s, the dance was waning, but a group of volunteers established the current preservation society, which successfully revitalized it. Today, you can see vibrant performances of this shishimai at New Year’s celebrations, spring and autumn festivals, and other major events in Nagano.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/shishimai-guardians-of-the-community

Nishimonai Bon Odori Preservation Society

The Nishimonai Bon Odori, a type of Furyu Odori (Furyu Dance), is an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property of Japan and is also registered on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list. This preservation society focuses on maintaining and nurturing the future of this dance. The society was founded in 1947 by the residents of Ugo, a town in Akita Prefecture. As of 2025, it has been active for 78 years, and it has approximately 80 members, with SATO Kanetsu V serving as the current chair. In addition to putting on the three-day Bon Odori itself from August 16th to 18th each year, the society hosts local practice sessions regularly, offers dance lessons at educational institutions, holds performances both across Japan and internationally, and works to deepen interest in and understanding of traditional culture. It is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Folk-Performing Arts Prize in 1999.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/bon-odori-dancing-with-ancestors

Four Villages (Tonoshiro, Okawa, Ishigaki and Arakawa Village Associations)

During the era of the Ryukyu Kingdom (1429 to 1879), the villages of Tonoshiro, Okawa, Ishigaki and Arakawa in the south of Ishigaki Island were the seat of a central government overseeing the Yaeyama Islands, making the four villages the heart of the region. Though they are still designated as villages today, they remain the region’s political, economic, educational and cultural center. In the area near the shore, government offices, commercial facilities, restaurants and other businesses line the road. Farther away from the beach are densely built sections comprised of educational facilities and residences. Beyond that are lands that produce rice semiannually thanks to the warm climate and abundant water flowing down from Okinawa’s highest peak, Mount Omoto.
Honensai harvest festivals, called “Puri,” are held throughout the Yaeyama Islands. The largest in scale among them is the “Four-village Puri,” a combination of traditional rituals and folk performing arts passed down through generations from the time of the Ryukyu Kingdom.
In 1993, the “Four-village Puri” was selected as an “Intangible Folk Cultural Properties that need measures such as making records,” and in 2014, it was featured in a special performance at the National Theatre Okinawa. Preservation associations in each village continue to pour active efforts into training successors to ensure the traditions are handed down to younger generations.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/honensai-prayers-for-the-harvest

LAND FES

LAND FES has staged dance and music performances in various locations around Tokyo since 2011 in order to popularize new ways of appreciating performing arts. It has been conducting dance and music workshops for people with disabilities since 2014. Its LAND FES DIVERSITY, a dance video streaming project featuring members of the general public, was held in Fukagawa, Tokyo from 2021-23. The group continues to explore the possibilities of the performing arts while addressing social issues and needs in shows such as the Scramble Dance Project, which welcomes dancers of all abilities and disabilities, and Tokyo Dance AR, whose performances combine augmented reality (AR) dances with city tours.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dive-in-shibaura

YOKOYAMA Ayano

Dancer/choreographer Ayano Yokoyama was born in Omachi, Nagano Prefecture. She explores unique movements focused on the senses. She extracts realities that we normally overlook and unearths various sensations with gender-free choreography connected intricately to sound. She seems to capture moments arising uniquely and spontaneously from dance.She launched the dance project “lal banshees” in 2016. She has performed in Japan and abroad, including an invited appearance at Aerowaves. Her major recent works include the two-part series "Suiyoubaion" and "Snow on the Seafloor" (2019) and the installation-type performance "STRANGER THAN PHENOMENON" (2022). She is the recipient of the YDC2020 Jury Award and 16th Japan Dance Forum Award. She was selected as the Saison Foundation’s Saison Fellow I in 2021-22 and 2023-24.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/yu-kei

team chiipro

Team Chiipro is a performance group currently consisting of members Matsumoto Nanako and Nishimoto Kengo. The group's practice revolves around the theme of the body and potential for gesture as critique. In recent years, the group has focused on identifying specific dance steps from particular places or times within a city, and thereby creates dance works in which it integrates multiple contexts evoked by the dance steps, the physical sensations, and the memories of the performers. Some of their major works include "Kokyo Running Man" (2019-20), "Kyoto Imaginary Waltz" (2021), "Menstruation Sumo Dance" (2022) and "nanako by nanako" (2024) .

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/menstruation-sumo-dance

Kinoshita Kabuki

Kinoshita-Kabuki is a theatrical company that interprets Kabuki plays from a new aspect, based on the historical context, and reproduces them as modern plays. Kinoshita Yuichi, the representative of the troupe, has supervised all the productions since it was founded in Kyoto in 2006, but in order to approach Kabuki from various viewpoints, he appoints different directors for each of the plays.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sesshu-gappo-ga-tsuji-itoi-version

Ampersand Theater Company

Ampersand was founded in 2016 by Ando Kei, who writes and directs the group’s productions. Actors Fukami Yuma and Sugawara Yuki joined in 2021. The group has won a following through its skill in sketching modern society and its unpredictable storylines.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/earthly-bones

Nuthmique

Since its founding in 2016 in Tokyo, Nuthmique has presented works that expand the framework of the performing arts with scripts using a musical background based on the question, "What is a theatrical performance?" It pursues active collaborations between artists, dancers, rappers and filmmakers. It main works include Superhuman (2018), a revival of The City Thereafter (2020), and Bonyari Blues (2021).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/hazy-blues-2022

egonaku

egonaku, with bases in Kitakyushu, Kyoto and Tokyo, specializes in creating new works aimed at global audiences. Their dramas incorporate lyrics and integrate musical elements into the direction, both in speech and structure. Their productions explore the state of the world with a focus on the modesty of individuals. The company has collaborated frequently with local communities, presenting their repertory in various settings, including marketplaces and city monorails.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/a-view

EMOTO Junko

Emoto Junko founded the theater company Kegawazoku in 2000 at the age of 21. The group staged a number of gala-style works in the 2000s and was attracting audiences of 4,000 by its third year. Its plays Sexy Driver in 2009 and Small Love Ero-gy in 2010 were finalists for the Kishida Kunio Drama Award. After a careful study of imagery during the pandemic, she made ample use of video projections in her next production, From Garden With Messenger, in 2021 (currently available on U-Next). Her next project the following year was an outdoor staging of Sexy Driver in a new format bringing together film and theater. Emoto was selected as a Saison Foundation Fellow II for a three-year term from 2019-2021.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sexy-driver

Kamome Machine

Kamome Machine, founded in 2007, creates a unique physicality incorporating the concepts of qigong and tai chi, focusing on the relationship between the individual body and the public space. Key works include: Oregayo, which draws its text from the Japanese Constitution; Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days; and Waiting for Godot in Fukushima, performed just outside the exclusion zone in Fukushima in the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster. The Company performed at the Temps DʼImages Festival in Romania in 2017 and Theater Commons Tokyo the following year. It launched the Telephone Theater Series in 2020, a theatrical concept using telephones as the 'stage'. Its works have included Moshi-Moshi Madame Simone, based on the essays by Simone Weil, in which audience members are invited to call the actor from a telephone box; PLAYlist for a Bench, commissioned by Kichijoji Theater; and Gaza Monologue Message Dial Version in which voices recorded by audience members are played for other audience members.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/oregayo-no-audience-version-at-honda-theater

KATO Takuya

Born in Osaka in 1993. Playwright, theatre director, film director and the founder of the theater company TAKUMI. he has written and directed all of the company's productions. In2021, he won the 10th Shinichi Ichikawa Script Drama Award. In 2022,his play "DODO'S FREE FALL" won the prestigious 67th Kishida Kunio Drama Award. In 2022, he won the 30th Yomiuri Theater Awards Director Award with his play "MOHAYA SHIZUKA" and "The Welkin" written by Lucy Kirkwood. His screenplay and directed French-Japanese co-production film "FLY ON" won the Distribution Support Award at the 45th Nantes Three Continents Film Festival. He was selected for Forbes JAPAN 30 UNDER 30 in 2023. In 2024, he staged a new work "One small step" in London's off-West End.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dodos-free-fall

CHAI

Formed by the “miracle twins” Mana and Kana, along with the incredibly powerful rhythm section composed of Yuuki and Yuna, this band is known as the “NEO – New Exciting Onna (Woman) Band.”
Asserting that everyone has their own version of “cute,” CHAI introduced a new concept of kawaii (cute) called “NEO Kawaii.”
CHAI embodies this message in their music in a pop fashion, and has garnered sympathy and support from a wide range of generations, transcending gender, age, and nationality.
Their 2017 debut album PINK swept various music charts and was also praised by many celebrities beyond the music industry. In 2018, they made their debut in both the U.S. and the U.K., embarked on four U.S. tours, two U.K. tours, and an Asia tour. In 2019, they released their second album PUNK and successfully concluded their first world tour, spanning the U.S., Europe, and Japan. In 2020, they signed with the popular U.S. indie label Sub Pop Records. By 2022, they had completed their fifth North American tour and performed at major festivals in Australia and Central and South America, establishing themselves as a highly regarded artist internationally in recent years. They released their fourth full album CHAI in September 2023.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/chai-neokawaii-night-in-laos-and-cambodia

ITO Kashitaro

Having started his singing career on video platforms, ITO Kashitaro became a sensation, often referred to as an unparalleled vocal talent. To date, his videos have amassed over 150 million views. His social media presence is considerable, boasting 710,000 followers and 300,000 official friends on LINE, making him a highly revered artist among younger netizens and social media users. After his major debut, he transitioned to creating original compositions and blossomed as a singer-songwriter, releasing three albums: Ichii Senshin, Niritsu Haihan, and Niten Ichiryu.
In spring 2018, he penned his debut novel Katei Kyoshitsu. In 2020, he released his first single Kioku no Hakobune (the ending theme for the anime Deca-Dence) and his first collected essays Bokutachi ni Niau Sekai (The World that Suits Us), published by KADOKAWA. These ventures showcased his prowess as a “singer-songwriter-novelist.” Since then, he has consistently released anime theme songs, including Shinjuiro no Kakumei (ending theme for Deep Insanity: The Lost Child), Silent Minority (opening theme for Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games Is Tough for Mobs), Hinata no Kuni and Neko Neko Biyori (theme songs for Nights with a Cat), and Vita Philosophica (ending theme for My Happy Marriage). In February 2022, he launched his first best-of album Sanzen Sekai, continuing his streak of having four consecutive albums ranked in the Oricon Top 10 chart.
From 2021 onward, he has been voicing the character Hikage Toma in the HIPHOP media mix project Paradox Live. While his primary activities revolve around singing, music production, and streaming, ITO Kashitaro’s endeavors span songwriting/music production for other musicians, voice acting, writing, and being a DJ and radio host, truly exemplifying his multifaceted talents. Interestingly, he refrains from showing his face in the media, using a fox mask as his trademark.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/asean-tour-2023-in-the-philippines-and-vietnam-a-yell-through-the-music

MIKAGE PROJECT

Formed in December 2020, MIKAGE PROJECT is a group of musicians who compose and arrange minyo folk songs of various regions with a contemporary sensibility, promoting their allure within Japan and abroad.
“MIKAGE” refers to the soul or spirit of gods and buddhas. The group’s foundational principle is to preserve the sonic spirits of our predecessors for future generations through folk songs from around the world. MIKAGE PROJECT consists of three talented members, each of whom has explored the potential of traditional Japanese instruments: SATO Kouki (shakuhachi, shinobue, ohayashi, percussion instruments), ASANO Sho (Tsugaru shamisen, vocals), and HONMA Takashi (25-string koto). Each member began learning their respective instrument under family tutelage from a young age and has achieved distinction in both domestic and international competitions.
Attracting attention for superb instrumental techniques and a style incorporating a broad range of musical genres, MIKAGE PROJECT appeared on NHK’s Minyo Damashii, a TV program about folk songs, less than a year after the group’s formation.
They released their first EP, MIKAGE PROJECT, in April 2021, followed by their second EP, NEO BUSHI, in May 2022, and their third EP, KeHaRe, in May 2023. With their unparalleled, refined sensibilities and harmonies, they are carving out a new niche for folk songs and drawing significant attention from the music industry.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/mikage-project-asean-tour-2023

Wichaya Artamat

Wichaya Artamat is a co-founding member of For What Theatre. He was long captivated by performances since when he was still studying Film. He started working in theater as a project coordinator for Bangkok Theatre Festival 2008. He joined the New Theatre Society in 2009, during which he grew to become a director recognized for various experimental forms and unconventional theatrical approaches. Hailed as ‘one of the most promising contemporary theater creators of Southeast Asia,’ Wichaya is especially interested in exploring how society remembers and unremembers its history through certain calendar days. He co-founded For What Theatre in 2014 and is also a member of Sudvisai Club and Collective Thai Scripts. Since the European premiere of his most prominent work “This Song Father Used to Sing (Three Days in May)” at Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2019, Wichaya has been extensively touring and creating in Europe, Asia, and beyond.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/juggle-hide-seven-whatchamacallits-in-search-of-a-director

ISHIGAMI Natsuki & Nuttamon Pramsumran

ISHIGAMI Natsuki

Playwright.centered around the theatrical group "Pepin Structural Designs" since 1999. In recent years, she has been working on site-specific plays and art projects using cities and communities as subject matter in and outside of Japan. Her recent works include writing and staging “Oesiki Project Tour Performance ‘BEAT,’” being Guest Curator for ADAM Artist Lab in Taipei Arts Festival 2019, and directing “Theater Today” in On Stage Shizuoka (FY2021), directing “Yoroboshi” at Shizuoka Performing Arts Center ( 2022).She is a chair of the non-profit art organization "Places and Narratives," based in Shizuoka since 2020.

Nuttamon Pramsumran

Writer, playwright. Born in Samut Sakhon, Thailand in 1993. Cofounder of Circle Theatre.B.A in Dramatic Arts program from Chulalongkorn University and M.F.A in Art Theory from Silpakorn University. Her works include “La maladie de l'amour: Detoxification of a Heart”（World Stage Design Festival, Taipei, Taiwan, 2017),”OK LAND” (Best Ensemble from Bangkok Theatre Festival 2020 and was selected to be in the M1 Singapore Fringe Festival 2022). She was Invited to TPAM2020（Yokohama, Japan）and also joined HEKTOMERON（Craiova, Romania) in 2021.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/parallel-normalities-whispering-blue-i-heard-your-voice-from-the-back-of-a-blue-car

SHIBUYA Keiichiro

SHIBUYA Keiichiro (b. 1973) is a Japanese composer and musician. His work encompasses cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations. Through his music compositions and collaboration with artists and scientists, he challenges the boundaries between humans and technology, and life and death.
In 2012, Shibuya composed the humanless vocaloid opera THE END, starring HATSUNE Miku. He composed this opera entirely with computer-generated audio and visuals. The performance, with costumes by Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, premiered at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since toured worldwide.
In 2018, SHIBUYA premiered the android opera titled Scary Beauty, in which the android sings while conducting an orchestra. This opera was staged in Japan, Germany, and the UAE. In 2021, he was commissioned by New National Theatre Tokyo to compose the opera Super Angels, which stars the android accompanied by human opera singers, ballet dancers, and a full orchestra. In 2022, SHIBUYA composed and performed the android opera MIRROR as a prototype for Expo 2020 Dubai, working in collaboration with Buddhist monks and orchestra.
SHIBUYA is also an award-winning composer of film scores. In 2020 and 2021, he was recognized at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and received the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award for the film Midnight Swan. In 2022, he composed a soundtrack for the short film KAGUYA BY GUCCI, a world-wide GUCCI’s brand activity.
In 2022, SHIBUYA opened his laboratory; Android and Music Science Laboratory at Osaka University of Arts with Professor ISHIGURO Hiroshi, a robotics researcher, and IMAI Shintaro, a computer musician and android programmer. Lab designed by architect SEJIMA Kazuyo. The institutes fosters reasarch on new music creation with androids and artificial intelligence.
http://atak.jp/en/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/mirror-for-paris-2023

OZAWA Michinari / EPOCH MAN

Epoch Man was founded by OZAWA Michinari, who is active in writing, directing, stage design, and planning/production. He is noted for work that probes the inner recesses of people's hearts, as well as a subtle directing style that is nevertheless tenacious and fast-paced. He portrays the obstacles and anxieties that arise when troubled people try to move on with their lives, using a humorous and highly theatrical style. Productions embrace actors and staff recruited from outside as well as the company regulars. OZAWA is also known for his unique stage designs, replete with surprising ideas and gimmicks that have won acclaim for their visual splendor. OZAWA's one-man play Maybe a Crane 2022 at the Honda Theater in February 2022 attracted 1,300 people.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/aurelian-siblings

Knit Cap Theater

This Kyoto-based theater company was founded in 1999. Centered on the works of playwright Goma no Hae, the group creates highly imaginative stage works combining words with drama, storytelling, dance, live folk instrument performances, songs, masks fabrics and other means of theatrical expression. It has also created many works based on local folklore and memories of the city. It is known for the award-winning Hirakata Note (New Kyoto Drama Award / OMS Drama Award, Special Award) and Chekhov Is Also a Bird’s Name (First Kansai Engeki Award, Award for Excellence / Hokkaido Drama Award, Grand Prize).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/curry-and-the-villagers

TAKAHA Aya

Shizuoka-born TAKAHA Aya is a playwright, director and actress. She founded Takaha Theater Company while a Waseda University student in 2005 and has written and directed all the group’s subsequent productions. She has also written anime, television dramas and novels. In the group’s 12th production Sweeter Than Lies, lead actor SATO Chikau won the Kinokuniya Award as Best Performer.
https://twitter.com/ayatakaha

TAKAHA Gekidan

A theater group led by writer/director TAKAHA Aya. Since its founding at Waseda University in 2005, the group has won strong acclaim both inside and outside the university. Its work is characterized by a cool, lyrical style that humorously captures the small despairs universally present in everyday life and the trivial way of human lives that never changes no matter how dire the circumstances.
Official site
http://takaha-gekidan.net/
Official X
https://twitter.com/takaha_gekidan
Official Instagram
https://instagram.com/takaha_gekidan?igshid=MmVlMjlkMTBhMg==

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-good-story-murders

KUWABARA Yuko

Born in Tokyo. KUWABARA is a playwright, director, actress, and head of the KAKUTA theater company. She currently serves as artistic director of Toyohashi Arts Theatre PLAT. Directs workshops, the PLAT Cultural Festival “Art Platter”, and Theatre Creation with professionals and non-professionals.
In addition to acting, she writes for television, radio, movies and also writes and directs for stages. KAKUTA’s “Sweet Hill” won the 64th Agency of Cultural Affairs National Arts Festival Award New Artist Award (for script and directing) in 2009, and “Traces” won the 18th Tsuruya Nanboku Drama Award in 2016. “Areno”, produced by Toyohashi Arts Theater PLAT, won the 5th Hayakawa Tragicomedy Award and Yomiuri Literary Award in the Drama/Scenario division. KAKUTA's “Hitoyo” was made into a movie by Shiraishi Kazuya in 2019.
KUWABARA’s other works include NHK's “Showa Kayo Musical: Until We Meet Again” (screenplay), New National Theater's “Lobby Hero” (director), and Red Light Theater Company's "Gosan (The Erroneous Dinner)” (writer/director).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/areno

Theatre Company Awai

Theatre Company Awai was established in Tokyo in 2018. Their work samples a wide variety of theatrical styles such as European/Asian classical literature, traditional theater, and contemporary pop culture, and present provocative pieces that push these styles in avant-garde expressions. The company consists of playwright/director OTSUKA Kentaro, actors MATSUO Kantaro, FURUSE Rinao, HIGASHI Takasumi, dramaturg ONA Yosuke, and producer TAKAMOTO Sae.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/drifting-an-adaptation-of-the-noh-play-sumidagawa

yashago

yashago is a theater unit formed by Seinendan company member/actor ITO Tsuyoshi. The company faithfully portrays the uncertain joys and sorrows in the lives of those in society's so-called lower middle class based on the contemporary colloquial theater, advocated by Seinendan leader HIRATA Oriza. This interpretation by Ito Tsuyoshi examines the unanswerable issues that arise even when none of the characters is at fault.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/cant-stand-me-now

Nagamekurasitsu: Yosuke Meguro

A rare contemporary Japanese circus group formed in 2008 by juggler/director Meguro Yosuke. He performs juggling and other circus techniques in collaboration with artists of various genres such as music and dance. His is active in theater, street performances, festivals, museums, and school performances. He also holds workshops for average citizens and performers in order to popularize and develop the contemporary circus scene in Japan.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/leave-the-heart-behind

Mi-Mi-Bi from DANCE BOX

The Mi-Mi-Bi dance company is made up of people with various physical disabilities such as the blind and deaf, those with prosthetic limbs, wheelchair users, those with less visible disabilities, and those with typical bodies. Company members, who had been developing their individual skills on their own, came together for a project sponsored by Dance Box and began trial performances in February 2022. In September that year, the group was invited to the Toyooka Theater Festival 2022 Fringe Selection, where it attracted much attention for its performance of a full-length dance piece. The group’s original works seek ways to share with audiences its members’ various physicality, sensations and ways of perceiving the world.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/a-documentary-by-mi-mi-bi-new-words

Newcomer H Sokerissa!

Newcomer H Sokerissa! is a dance group consisting of members with experience living on the streets. Dancer/choreographer Aoki Yuuki began recruiting participants in 2005 and held the group’s first performance in 2007. To date, more than 40 people who have previously lived on the streets have joined a total of nearly 150 performances. The group participated in 2016 in Celebra's "With One Voice", the official cultural program of the Rio Olympics. It won the Konica Minolta Social Design Award 2016 Grand Prix. A documentary film called Dancing Homeless that followed their activities won acclaim nationwide.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/2021-2022-festival-of-the-body-on-the-road-h-newcomer-h-sokerissa-yokohama-tokyo-road-dance-tour

Kitamari / KIKIKIKIKIKI

Choreographer Kitamari has staged many works at home and abroad from her Kyoto base since founding the company in 2003. In 2018 the company became a production unit recruiting varied members for each production. It added another creative base in Hokkaido in 2022. It is developing a broad range of cross-genre creative activity using fields of expression beyond dance. Examples include a project since 2016 to choreograph all of Gustav Mahler's symphonies and a series since 2021 to turn dramas by Ota Shogo into dance pieces.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/nocturne-for-the-old-flower

SUZUKI Konomi

Born on November 5, 1996, in Osaka Prefecture.
She won the Fifth All-Japan Anime Song Grand Prix in 2011 and debuted at the age of 15 with “CHOIR JAIL” in the following year.
She has sung the theme songs to many anime TV series, including “This Game,” the opening theme to the anime series “No Game, No Life,” and “Redo,” the opening theme to the anime series “Re:ZERO - Starting Life in Another World.”
In the anime TV series “LOST SONG,” which began airing in April 2018, she costarred as a voice actress with TAMURA Yukari and sang the opening theme Utaeba Soko ni Kimi ga Iru Kara (“If I Sing, You’ll Be There”).
Beginning in 2016, she went on tours of Asia in four consecutive years and held solo concerts in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the Philippines. She has also been featured in numerous overseas events, performing in countries such as the US, Canada, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Germany, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Australia.
In the 2020 summer anime season, Suzuki became the first artist to have three of her songs featured in different anime airing at the same time: “Theater of Life,” the opening theme of “Deca-dence ”; “Realize,” the opening theme of the second season of “Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World”; and “Maioritekita Yuki” (Falling, Fluttering Snow), the ending theme of “Mr Love: Queen’s Choice .” She released singles for three months in a row.
In 2021, remaining active even during the COVID-19 pandemic, she released another three singles: “Bursty Greedy Spider,” the opening theme for the second half of the anime series “So I’m a Spider, So What? ”; “Missing Promise,” the ending theme of the anime “Higurashi: When They Cry – Sotsu ”; and “Inochi no Tomoshibi” (Life’s Light), the opening theme of the anime “Deep Insanity The Lost Child.” In May 2022, she released her fifth full-length album “ULTRA FLASH.”
On July 1, 2022, she launched her own company and became its representative director and president. She also announced and successfully held her second solo concert at Hibiya Open-Air Concert Hall.
On October 26, 2022, she released “Love? Reason why!!,” the opening theme to the anime TV series “Love Flops.”

Official website / fan club website:
https://www.konomi-suzuki.net/
Official Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/Suzuki_Konomin/
Official Instagram account:
https://www.instagram.com/konomin_official/
Official LINE blog:
https://lineblog.me/suzukikonomi/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-best-night-in-kuala-lumpur-following-suzuki-konomi-from-japan-to-malaysia

WADA Nagara & Sankar Venkateswaran

WADA Nagara

WADA Nagara graduated with a degree in film and performing arts from Kyoto University of Art and Design (now Kyoto University of the Arts) and then completed a master’s program at the same university. Launching her own unit “shitatame” in February 2011, she began working as a theater director based in Kyoto. Her major works include Moji Ishoku (Transplanting Letters, 2016), originally written by TAWADA Yoko, Dictee (2017), originally written by Theresa Hak Kyung CHA, and Giben (Couvade, 2019), a performance of pregnancy and childbirth by people who have not experienced them. She also collaborates with artists from different fields such as visual art, photography, and music. In 2015, she won the Best Work award at the fifth installment of the Telling a Story by Creating from a Play Script competition. In 2018, she won the Audience Award at the Komaba Agora Directors Concours. Since 2018, she has served as the bookings manager for the multidisciplinary art space UrBANGUILD in Kyoto. From 2019, she has been supervising the cartographical research project Our Freehand Atlas . She has been a Bird Park Associate Artist since 2020, and is Chief director of the NPO Kyoto Performing Arts Organization. She was a Saison Fellow I at the Saison Foundation in 2021–2022.

Sankar Venkateswaran

Born in 1979, Sankar Venkateswaran is a theatre director from Kerala, India. Venkateswaran studied directing at the School of Drama and Fine Arts, University of Calicut, after which he trained at the Theatre Training and Research Programme in Singapore. In 2007, he founded Theatre Roots & Wings, and directed “Sahyande Makan: The Elephant Project” (2008) with Japanese actor Micari, Ohta Shogo’s “Water Station” (2011) and Henrik Ibsen’s “When We Dead Awaken” (2012) among others. In 2013 he received the Ibsen Scholarship from Teater Ibsen, Norway, for ‘Tribal Ibsen Project’ which furthered his work with the indigenous people in Attappadi, Kerala. His following works, “Criminal Tribes Act” (2017) and “Indian Rope Trick” (2020) reflect the shift in Venkateswaran’s working context. His works have been presented at various theatres and festivals such as Zürcher Theater Spektakel, Kyoto Experiment, Zoukak Sidewalks in Beirut, Theater Commons Tokyo, SPIELART Theaterfestival Munich, National Arts Festival, South Africa, and Theaterfestival Basel. His recent works are Duncan Macmillan’s “Every Brilliant Thing” (2022), “My Name is Tamizh” (2022) and “Goodbye, and good wishes for your success—A response to Annihilation of Caste” (2022).
Alongside his work with the company, Venkateswaran directed a number of works as a guest director for various institutions such as Anton Chekhov’s “Seagull” (2011) and Maurice Maeterlinck’s “Interior” (2020) for NINASAM Theatre Institute, Heggodu, India, Bhasa’s “Urubhangam” (2011) for Shinshu University, Japan, “Tage der Dunkelheit” (2016) and “INDIKA” (2017) for Münchner Volkstheater, “When We Dead Awaken” (2018) for Intercultural Theatre Institute, Singapore, and “IM TOD—In My Time of Dying” (2022) for Theaterhaus Jena.
Venkateswaran served as the artistic director for the International Theatre Festival of Kerala in 2015 and 2016. He was the jury member for Zurich Theater Spektakel 2016, and most recently he was the international curation committee member for Theaterfestival Basel 2022.
He lives and works from Sahyande Theatre, a theatre-dwelling he built in the mountain valley of Attappadi, Kerala.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/goodbye-and-good-wishes-for-your-success-a-response-to-annihilation-of-caste

Boom Pam and The Spirit of Tohoku

Gyozan-ryu Mitobe Deer Dance (Shishi Odori) Preservation Group (Minamisanriku-cho, Motoyoshi-gun, Miyagi Prefecture)

In the Tohoku region, various types of deer dances (shishi odori) have been handed down through the ages. Shishi refers to mountain animals that were sustenance for the people of Tohoku. Among the dances, the Shishi Odori, in which people wear a head covering with real deer antlers called kashira, carry 2.7-meter-long bamboo poles called sasara on their backs, and sing and dance while beating the drum attached to their waist, has been handed down in the region from northern Miyagi Prefecture to southern Iwate Prefecture. Eight deer—one leader, one doe, and six young deer—make offerings at the Obon summer festival and pray for a good harvest at the Fall Festival.
The Mitobe area of Tokura in Minamisanriku-cho was mentioned in ancient documents as the birthplace of the Shishi Odori, but the tradition had disappeared over time.
In 1982, a stone monument related to the Shishi Odori, built in 1724, was discovered in the soil on a hill. This led to the dance’s revival, which was achieved with guidance from the performers of the Shishi Odori of Maikawa, Ichinoseki City, Iwate Prefecture; Maikawa’s dance had its origin in the Mitobe area.
In 2011, when the region once again faced disaster due to the tsunami caused by the Great East Japan Earthquake, Mitobe Shishi Odori played a role in the recovery efforts. The dancers inherited the intention of the words inscribed on the stone monument, "We are dancing as a memorial to the souls of all living creatures," and wearing kashira and drums found in the rubble, they began dancing again to pray for the repose of the victims’ souls and to encourage those who had been separated from loved ones. Designated as an intangible folk cultural property by Minamisanriku-cho.
https://www.town.minamisanriku.miyagi.jp/museum/future/article.php?p=642

SHIRASAKI Emi

Singer. Born in Sakata City, Yamagata Prefecture. She started her career in 1990 with the famous band “Shang Shang Typhoon” and the support of Epic Sony. By participating in many projects such as composing music for the Studio Ghibli’s “Pom Poko”, or the album recording and live performance of Cyndi Lauper, she gained a wide popularity in Japan and abroad. After the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake, she decided to come back to Tohoku region and to start the band “Emi Shirasaki & 6 Tohoku Prefectures Roll Show !!” – gathering musicians from both traditional and rock/jazz scene of the Tohoku region and touring regularly in the whole country. In 2016, she published a photo essay “Oni Utahi” (published by Aki Shobo). She is currently a regular columnist for the Yamagata Shimbun and also often appears on TV, movies and theatrical performances.
She is the Sakata Tourism Ambassador, representative Director of Moshe Yamagata and has received the Furusato Honor Award from Sakata City in 2017.
In April 2022, she published Attakohousa: Tohoku Utahime ♡ Essei-shu (Toward a warm place: Essays by a Tohoku diva), a collection of essays originally written for Yamagata Shimbun.
http://emishirasaki.com/

YOTSUKURA Yukihiko

Born in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture in 1983.
Yotsukura’s work centers on improvised music, but he also frequently engages in physical expression, live painting, and collaborations with video artists.
He performed music for the performances Yukiwatari (Snow crossing) and Fukushima–Voice from the Hurt (2012) by dancer MORI Shigeya at the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Niigata Prefecture, and in the performance Geino no Hajimari (The beginning of performing arts, 2015) by Ryoondo-Tea at the Performing Arts Program "Bon festival on the Earth."
He also performed at Narukyo (2008-2013) held at Naruko Hot Spring in Miyagi Prefecture, Shibukyo (2009-2014) held at Shibu Hot Spring in Nagano Prefecture, and Hijikyo (2013) held at Hijiori Hot Spring in Yamagata Prefecture, which were events focused on hot spring culture, art, and electronic music.
In September 2020, he participated in Richi Owaki's work Connected Dreams at Yamagata Biennale 2020.
He provided music for Mitsui Garden Hotel Kyoto Kawaramachi Jokyoji and the play Adventure King, as well as for the special exhibitions Ogatsu no Nioi (The smell of Ogatsu) and Ogatsu no Ishi (The stones of Ogatsu), etc.
He joined the Ogatsu-cho Date no Kurofune Daiko (Ogatsu’s group for Japanese drum preservation) and Ogatsu-cho Dobayashi Shishimai Misosaku Aikoren (Ogatsu’s shishimai lion dance society) after supporting local performing arts affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011. Through training in Japanese drums, shinobue bamboo flute, and shishimai (Japanese lion dance), as well as through musical performances, he continues his daily research on folklore and the expression fostered by the land and local people.
https://coupieyukki.blogspot.com/

Boom Pam

Tel Aviv-based band Boom Pam formed in 2003. They play a mixture of Mediterranean rock and surf music in the format of a unique quartet including: Electric Guitar, Tuba, Keyboard and Drums.
Initial highlights for the band included playing at the reunion show of legendary band Minimal Compact & Emir Kusturitza’s “Non Smoking Orchestra” and showcasing at WOMEX 2006 (the World Music Expo) which launched their worldwide touring career.
Boom Pam’s debut album in 2006 and was distributed throughout the World. The album went straight into the top ten list of the European World Music Charts.
Boom Pam made their first appearance in Japan in 2012, followed by a tour in Japan, which included an epic performance at Fuji-Rock Festival and performances in Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama.
In March 2021, on the 10th anniversary of the Great East Japan Earthquake, they participated in the Israel-Japan Partnership Tohoku Initiative 2021, a project of the Embassy of Israel in Japan. As part of this initiative, Kikoetekuru Naminoyouni: Like the Waves You Hear was released on March 11, 2022, remotely produced with a local performing arts group in Minamisanriku-cho, Miyagi Prefecture, and artists from the Tohoku region.
https://www.facebook.com/BoomPam.Rocks/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/boom-pam-the-spirit-of-tohoku

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Born 1970 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Based in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s tranquil, lyrical movies set in the northeastern part of Thailand and based on folktales, legends, personal memories of the forest, current events and previously lived lives, have enjoyed the attention of audiences and critics worldwide. Beginning with his first feature film in 2000, Weerasethakul has updated the history of cinema with numerous new masterpieces, from “Tropical Malady” (winner of the 2004 Cannes Jury Prize), to “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” (2010 Palm D’Or) and his latest movie “Memoria” (2021 Cannes Jury Prize). In addition to his work as a film director, Weerasethakul also expresses his quiet enthusiasm for the world through a series of artworks such as video installations and performance pieces, including “Fever Room” (2015), “SleepCinemaHotel” (2018), and “A Conversation with the Sun” (2022).

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/a-conversation-with-the-sun-vr

NAKASHIMA Makoto and Nicholas Viselli

Nakashima Makoto

Nakashima Makoto was born in 1966 and graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Tokyo. He first became involved in theater while studying at university. After graduating, he led a theater company based in Tokyo. He was also a member of the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) for a year and a half starting in 2004. In 2006, he transformed an abandoned school in Tottori into a theater and founded the BIRD Theatre Company. He aims to demonstrate to society the inherent power of theater, a cultural device with a history of more than two thousand years, and to promote wider recognition of the profound value of theatrical art and theaters. Concentrating on both pursuing artistic value and raising awareness of it, he is also involved in the promotion of regional development and education. His major plays include The Visit (Friedrich Dürrenmatt) and Forging the Swords (Lu Xun).
He was awarded Best Director at the Toga Director’s Competition in 2003; received the Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology in 2010; and received an Award for Cultural Merit from Tottori Prefecture in 2015.
He is the Japanese representative to the BeSeTo Theatre Festival Committee, a member of the Tottori Prefectural Board of Education, and a member of the Tottori University Administrative Council.

Nicholas Viselli

Artistic Director of Theater Breaking Through Barriers (TBTB)
He studied at the Royal National Theater in London. He joined TBTB in 1997 and is deeply humbled to continue the legacy, started by TBTB's founding Artistic Director.
As an actor, Nick has performed in nearly every TBTB production for the past 18 years. Some of his favorite roles with TBTB include: Creon/Laius/Slave in the 2006 production of Ted Hughes’s adaptation of Seneca’s Oedipus, the title role in the 2006 production of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Nick has also directed several plays for TBTB and has served as the company’s sound designer, travel coordinator, administrative associate and Associate Director. He has attended International Theater Festivals for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Zagreb, Croatia as an actor and has served as the producer, director and key coordinator for the company during their festival appearances in 2009 and 2011. In 2013, he orchestrated, developed, produced and directed the special performance by TBTB, commissioned for the United Nations to commemorate the International Day of People with Disabilities.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ctrl-l-a-difference-of-beauty

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/breaking-barriers-through-theatre

Merzbow, Balázs Pándi, Richard Pinhas, SHIGA Lieko

Merzbow

Merzbow is a Vegan Straight Edge Noise Project by Masami Akita. Part of the industrial noise scene in the early 1980s, he mainly started releasing music on overseas labels. In the 1990s, influenced by Grindcore, he released an album of the Death Metal label Relapse. In the 2000s, resonating with label mego's "punk computer music" he was the first in Japan to adopt a method of playing live using a laptop. In recent years, he has been working mainly with analog equipment. Since around 2003, he has practiced veganism from an animal rights standpoint. He has created works on the themes of anti whale and dolphin fishing, anti fur and the liberation of livestock animals. In recent years he has collaborated with artists such as Mats Gustafsson, Thurston Moore, BORIS, Keiji Haino, Nyantra, Lawrence English, Xiu Xiu, GEZAN, Alessandro Cortini. Merzbow’s new work Hope will be released from a Ukrainian label in support of the Ukraine.

Balázs Pándi

Balázs Pándi is a drummer based in Hungary. Experienced in anything between the genres of dub, breakcore, free improvisation, noise, grindcore and jazz, he has worked and toured with various artists from around the world including Venetian Snares, Otto von Schirach and The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble. Since 2009 he has frequently played drums live with Merzbow and they have also released three live records with artists such as Mats Gustafsson, Keiji Haino and Thurston Moore. Since 2013, he also works as a journalist at Hungarian news site Telex.

Richard Pinhas

Musician, guitarist and writer. Pinhas studied philosophy under the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Jean-François Lyotard, and has been active as a musician, guitarist and writer since the 1970s. He founded the band Schizo, which later became Heldon, one of France's leading Avant Rock groups, and is recognized as one of France's major experimental musicians as well as being a pivotal figure in the development of electronic rock. While influenced by Robert Fripp and Brian Eno, he has a very original musical style. In addition to his activities as a soloist and in bands, he is also active beyond the genre of music and writes books on philosophy.

SHIGA Lieko

Photographer. Born in 1980 in Aichi, Japan, Shiga lives and works in Miyagi, Japan since 2008. She graduated from London College of the Arts Chelsea College of Art and Design in 2004. In her work she continues to pursue the relationship between society and nature, to think about life through imagining death, and after the Great East Japan Earthquake, to purse the inner reality of the madness of the human mind and body that she feels continues to be suppressed by the earthquake reconstruction plan promoted by the national government and big corporations. Recently she has been holding regular open studios at Studio Parlor, a creation space in Miyagi Prefecture, as well as workshops and talks in collaboration with the members of the art collective PUMPQUAKES. Major group exhibitions include "Off the Wall" (The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, 2021), "Tsumazuki no Niwa" (Kyu Kankeimaru Shoten, Ishinomaki, 2022). Major solo exhibitions include "Human Spring" (Tokyo Photographic Art Museum, 2019). In 2021 she received the Tokyo Contemporary Art Award (TCAA) 2021–2023.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/merzbow-balazs-pandi-amp-richard-pinhas-with-lieko-shiga-bipolar

SUGIMOTO Hiroshi

SUGIMOTO Hiroshi’s signature practice spans the mediums of performing arts, photography, sculpture, installation and architecture. His art deals with history and temporal existence through a variety of subject matters. He explores issues surrounding time, empiricism, and metaphysics that bridge Eastern and Western ideologies while examining the nature of perception and the origins of consciousness.

SUGIMOTO was born in Tokyo in 1948 and moved to the U.S.A. in 1970. He has lived in NYC since 1974. In 2008, he founded the New Material Research Laboratory, an architectural design office, and in 2009 he established the Odawara Art Foundation.

Awards:
1988 – The Mainichi Art Award (Japan)
2001 – The Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (Sweden)
2009 – The 21st Praemium Imperiale (Japan)
2010 – The Medal with Purple Ribbon (Japan)
2013 – Officier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France)
2017 – Bunkakorosha (Person of Cultural Merit, Japan)

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-okina-shin-nan-nyo-kyo-ki

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-okina

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-takasago

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-tadanori

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-ebira

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-yo-kihi

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-kayoi-komachi

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-climax-mochizuki

Pascal RAMBERT

French playwright, director, movie director, and choreographer. Born in 1962. Worked as artistic director of the national dramatic center, Théatre de Gennevilliers, from 2007 to 2017, receiving high acclaim. He won the Grand Prize in Dramatic Literature in 2012, the Author’s Award in 2013, and the Académie Française Literature and Philosophy Prize in 2016. Since 2017, he has been an associate artist of Théatre de Bouffes du Nord in Paris. In 2019, his play Architecture premiered at the Festival d’Avignon.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kotatsu

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kotatsu-behind-the-scenes

Daniel Jeanneteau

Daniel Jeanneteau is a director and a scenographer. After graduating from Strasbourg School of Decorative Arts, he studied drama at the school attached to the National Theatre of Strasbourg. While at school, he met Claude Régy, a maestro of the theater world in France, and was engaged in the scenography of his works for fifteen years thereafter. He also worked with many directors and choreographers, including Jean-Claude Gallotta, Trisha Brown, and Pascal Rambert. Since 2001, in collaboration with Marie-Christine Soma, he has been directing works by Racine, Strindberg, Sarah Kane, and Daniel Keene. After serving as the art director in Studio-Théâtre de Vitry from 2008, he assumed the post of theater director for T2G – Théâtre de Gennevilliers in 2017.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-cherry-orchard

FUJIKURA Dai

Born in Osaka, FUJIKURA Dai moved to England by himself at the age of 15 to study under George Benjamin and other distinguished composers. FUJIKURA has received a great number of awards for composition and taken on numerous internationally commissioned projects. The opera “Solaris”, which had its world premiere in 2015, was co-commissioned by the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Opéra de Lausanne, and the Opéra de Lille. In 2019, FUJIKURA was awarded the Otaka Prize and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize. 2020 then saw the world premiere of the opera “A Dream of Armageddon”, at the New National Theatre, Tokyo, which was selected by many music magazines as that year’s best opera performance. FUJIKURA has recently taken on a great variety of projects, including pieces for remote performance and commissioned compositions for television programs. His works have been released by his own label Minabel Records, Sony Music, and others, and his compositions are published by Ricordi Berlin.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/work-in-progress-for-music-theatre-production

Company Derashinera

Company Derashinera was formed by Shuji Onodera in 2008. Its theater works, full of physicality based on mimes, has attracted attention across generations. Besides activities in Japan, Company Derashinera actively performs abroad, including collaboration between Vietnam and Japan titled, “WITHOUT SIGNAL!” and KAAT DANCE SERIES 2020 “Knife.”
In addition, Derashinera is active in reaching out to the next generation, such as performances in secondary schools. Their style is not limited to set stages, and many performances take place outside the theater such as in open air, art museums and art festivals.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/toge

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/hourglass

SUZUKI Tadashi and Restu I. Kusumaningrum

SUZUKI Tadashi

Founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), chairman of the Toga Cultural Foundation. SUZUKI founded SCOT in 1966.
In 1976, he relocated his company to the village of Toga in Toyama Prefecture before establishing Japan’s first international theatre festival, the Toga Festival, in 1982. SUZUKI has staged plays and worked on co-productions all over the world in addition to creating the Suzuki Method of Actor Training, a system which is now used to train actors at theatre companies and schools worldwide including the Moscow Art Theatre, The Julliard School in New York, and the Central Academy of Drama in China.
SUZUKI also serves as an international committee member for the Theatre Olympics. He is a founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (jointly organized by leading theatre professionals from Japan, China, and South Korea). His major directorial works include Dionysus, King Lear, and Greetings from the Edge of the Earth I & II. Published works include Engeki to wa nani ka [What Theatre is] (Iwanami Shoten) and Culture is the Body (Theatre Communications Group).
https://www.scot-suzukicompany.com/en/

Restu I. Kusumaningrum

Born in 1965, Restu Imansari Kusumaningrum is an independent producer, artistic director and performer. She has an extensive background both in Indonesia and abroad in her two major life-long fields of study: dance theatre performance and landscape architecture. In 1999, Kusumaningrum co-founded the Bali Purnati Center for the Arts as an international non-profit cultural foundation.
As a producer, she has collaborated with Robert Wilson to create a new staging of the Indonesian epic / La Galigo. She is also known for overseeing the Japan-Indonesia co-production of Suzuki Tadashi's Dionysus.
Restu is a recipient of the “Ordine della Stella d’Italia” from Italian Government for her role in promoting cultural and social ties between Italy and Indonesia in 2014; and in 2019 Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture accorded her the Culture Award for her role as a Creator, Pioneer and Innovator in Jakarta.
https://www.balipurnati.com ｜ https://www.bumipurnati.com

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/electra

Raphaëlle Boitel

Raphaëlle Boitel was born in 1984 and started learning theatre and performing when she was 6 years old.
Noticed by Annie Fratellini, she joined the National School of Circus Arts Fratellini. From 1998 to 2010, she worked with James Thierrée in La Symphonie du Hanneton – The Junebug Symphony and in La Veillée des Abysses. During those 13 years of touring, she also performed in theater, cinema, television movies (directed by Marc Lainé, Lisa Guédy, Graham Eatough in Scotland, Luc Meyer, Serreau Hill, Jean-Paul Scarpitta...), events (Jean-François Zygel), music videos, and in various cabarets in New York, Miami, London...
In 2012, she worked under the direction of Aurélien Bory in Géométrie de Caoutchouc, founded her own company, and worked on her first personal creations.
In 2013, she created Consolations ou interdiction de passer par dessus bord, with 3 artists from the Academy Fratellini, worked on the choreography of the Opera Macbeth, at the Scala in Milan, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti.
In 2014, she created The Forgotten, a long form shows of « circus theater » and in 2015, FIERCE 5, an homage to circus.
Soon after, she choreographed the Opera La Belle Hélène at the Théâtre du Châtelet, directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti and Pierrick Sorin.
In 2017, she wrote and performed a short-form solo, The Black Beast, a metaphor of her past life as a contortionist.
That same year, she choreographed the Opera Alcione at the Opéra comique, directed by Louise Moaty and conducted by Jordi Savall.
Between 2018 and 2020, she created When Angels Fall, a dystopian world, Horizon, in collaboration with the Opéra National de Bordeaux, and Un Contre Un, a performance for young audiences, in rapid succession.
Boitel continues to create new works, and in 2021 she collaborated with Setagaya Public Theatre for an international creation of Fierce 5 in Japan.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/fierce-5-behind-the-scenes

MementoC / DAKEMOTO Ayumi

Memento C is a theater unit formed in 2008 by playwright DAKEMOTO Ayumi, a multi-award-winning Japanese playwright and director. Datemoto sheds light on history and women's inequality in Asia.
Her major works include Dam (directed by FUJI Go/awarded the Japan Arts Festival Excellence Award), The Security Zone/Nanjing, The Daughter of That Monk","Gently Touch My Heart”, and more.
Her theater style ranges from modern theater, musicals, gender studies, as well collaboration with traditional Japanese performing arts, which was exemplified in "The Cycle of Women's Rebirth in the Pure Land Project”.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-pacific-refreshment-room

Lasalle ISHII, KURAMOCHI Yutaka

Lasalle ISHII

ISHII was born in Osaka in1955. He entered the acting school of Theater Echo during his university years. Subsequently, he founded the comedy troupe CONTE AKASHINGO and debuted on TV in 1980. Since then he has been a popular TV personality. He has performed as an actor and a voice actor in many works including his iconic anime role of Kankichi Ryotsu, the lead character in “Kochira Katsushikaku Kamearikoenmae Hashutsujo (KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops)”. In the field of theater, he has also been working as a playwright and director of numerous works. He was awarded the Excellent Director at the 23rd Yomiuri Theater Award for “HEADS UP!” (2015) in which he wrote the first draft of the script and lyrics and worked as a director.

KURAMOCHI Yutaka

KURAMOCHI was born in Kanagawa in 1972. In 2000 he founded the theater company Penguin Pull Pale Piles in which he has been working as a playwright and a director. In 2004 he was awarded the KISHIDA Kunio Drama Award for “One Man Show”. In addition to the company’s performance, he wrote the dramas such as “Osei Tojo”, “Ue o shita e no Diletta”, “Kamatsuka-shi, Maichiru”, which he also directed, “Midare Uguisu” and “Kemuri no Gundan”. He also wrote the screenplays such as “12 Suicidal Teens” and “ZOKKI” as well as the script for the TV show “LIFE! jinsei ni sasageru conte”.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/musical-heads-up

Saitama Gold Theater

The group emerged from a proposal by the late NINAGAWA Yukio when he took over as artistic director of Saitama Arts Theater, seeking to create a space where older people “can meet their new selves” through physical expression based on their personal histories. The project was launched in April 2006 with 48 persons selected from more than 1,200 applicants aged 55 and up. The group has focused on contemporary works by up-and-coming playwrights starting with their first show, IWAMATSU Ryo’s Picnic on the Ship, in June 2007, and has won great acclaim at home and abroad, including overseas performances. With the aging of the cast (average age over 80 years) as well as difficulties caused by the coronavirus, the group announced in July 2021 that it would end its activities within the year. Its performance of the classic The Water Station in December 2021 marked the close of its 15-year run.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/billows-of-pale-pink

iaku

iaku is a theater unit created by playwright YOKOYAMA Takuya in Osaka. YOKOYAMA’s many works are characterized by their piquant colloquial Kansai dialect. He has won praise for his humorous touch in shows highlighting the universal problems of people and the dramas surrounding them through dialogue, discussion and clashes among the main characters.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/stitchers

OKOUCHI Naoko / SHIMIZU Kunio

OKOUCHI Naoko

Graduated RADA in 1994. Met Yukio Ninagawa through Thelma Holt in UK. Worked as an assistant director to Ninagawa until his final production in Japan. Carrer as a director started from ‘Rhinoceros’by Eugene Ionesco with Rinko-gun in 2004. Founded Theatre produce unit ‘unrato’in 2017.
Works :‘Rhinoceros’by Eugene Ionesco‘I DO I DO’ by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt
’The last Flapper’by William Luce ’Bloody Poetry’by Howard Brenton‘Address Unkown’by Karessmann Taylor and Frank Dunlop’Mary Stuart’by Dacia Maraini ’The Time of Winter’by Junji Kinoshita ’Rose and Pirates’ by Yukio Mishima.

SHIMIZU Kunio

Playwright, author, director. November 17, 1936 - April 15, 2015. Graduated from Waseda University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences. His maiden effort The Signatory, which he published as a student in 1958 (first production: 1960), won the Teatro Theatre Award and Waseda Theatre Award. After graduation, he joined Iwanami Film Productions, where he wrote film scripts for five years. He then became involved in theater and founded Sakura-sha with Ninagawa Yukio and others in 1972. His piece When We Go Down That Great Unfeeling River was given the prestigious KISHIDA Kunio Drama Award in 1974. He founded the Mokutosha with his wife MATSUMOTO Noriko and others in 1976. Their first production, You Night of Youth that Raises My Hackles with Screams and Anger, received the Kinokuniya Drama Award. His many other awards include the IZUMI Kyoka Award for My Spirit is the Sparkling Water (1980), the Yomiuri Theater Award for Elegy (1983), and the Kinokuniya Drama Award for Diary of a Brat and Waga Yume ni Mita Seishun no Tomo (1994). He was awarded the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon by the Japanese government in 2002.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-dressing-room-that-which-flows-away-ultimately-becomes-nostalgia-by-shimizu-kunio

DAZZLE

DAZZLE, led by HASEGAWA Tatsuya, is noted for its storytelling pieces despite its background in street dance. The dance is created from ideas that are distinctly different from conventional dance language and draws a wide range of audiences. Misty Mansion is DAZZLE's signature piece, using text to tell a profound story of brotherly self-sacrifice. Its performance at the Sibiu International Theater Festival in Romania earned a standing ovation before the final scene began.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/misty-mansion

Moonlight Mobile Theater / ASAI Nobuyoshi

He was a street dancer from 1997 to 2005, and has won many awards including the WORLD HIP-HOP CHAMPIONSHIP.From 2006 to 2011, he was a member of Sankai Juku. In parallel, on 2011, the Pola Art Foundation provided him grants to pursue his choreographic and artistic researches in Berlin, so as to weave links between Japanese cultural background and occidental contemporary creative movements. The following year, he obtained the Japanese Government Study program for Artists and spent a year in Tel Aviv, attached at the Batsheva Dance Company and also collaborating with the alternative artistic environment of Clipa Theater. From 2012 to 2015, he established PIERRE MIROIR based in Paris. He has participated in the world tours of Damien Jalet and Kohei Nawa's VESSEL, Darren Johnston's Zero Point, Nacera Belaza's La Travers, Phantom Limb Company's Falling out, and Sue Healy's ON VIEW PANORAMA. He has performed in over 150 cities in 35 countries. In recent years, he has been featured as a Butoh dancer in the documentary program "MOVE" on ARTE, a joint program between France and Germany, and has been the president of the contemporary dance platform "Dance House kOGANE4422" since 2017 and he is also artistic director of Moonlight Mobile Theater. He is a full-time lecturer in the performing arts area at Nagoya University of Arts.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/peeping-garden-recreation

KEDAGORO / SHIMOJIMA Reisa

KEDAGORO is the dance company led by SHIMOJIMA Reisa, formed in 2013. Currently 7 dancers are active as company members.
The company's masterpiece “sky” (2018) links the process of their own creation with the structure of collective madness under the theme of the United Red Army. Another important work "Because Kazcause" (2021) takes its inspiration from Kazuko FUKUDA, an actual hostess murderer from Matsuyama city in the 1980s, who had changed her face by plastic surgery and escaped for 15 years.
Based on the company's idea that “dance is a method for exploring this world,” they have been working both in Japan and overseas, aiming to present controversial works across international borders.
SHIMOJIMA's signature works include "Monkey in a Diaper" (2017), which is based on the case of Aum Shinrikyo, and "Shut Up, Womb" (2021) commissioned by the Korean National Contemporary Dance Company. She has been supported by The Saison Foundation since 2022.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/because-kazcause

YAMADA Yuri / ZEITAKU BINBOU

Playwright, director, actor and founder of ZEITAKU BINBOU. Since the company started in 2012, performances by ZEITAKU BINBOU seamlessly move back and forth across the borders between stage and audience, madness and sanity, and our reality and other worlds. They employ a light touch and a pop sensibility to draw attention to social issues in modern Japan. Since 2014 they have been developing the “uchi-project*,” creating, rehearsing and performing shows inside private homes (“Uchi” means home in Japanese). Major works include "Fiction City" (2017) and "Mixture" (2019) that were nominated for the Kunio Kishida Playwright Award, "Everyone Fears the Night"(premier in 2015, Chinese version premier in 2018) that toured across mainland China.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/im-trying-to-understand-you-but

Noism Company Niigata / KANAMORI Jo

Noism Company Niigata – RYUTOPIA Residential Dance Company

Noism is Japan’s first dance company to have a residency at a theatre, basing its activities at the RYUTOPIA Niigata City Performing Arts Center. The company was founded in 2004, after the director, choreographer, and dancer Jo Kanamori was appointed artistic director of RYUTOPIA’s Dance Division. It is split into three divisions: Noism0, comprising selected professional dancers; Noism1, consisting of professional dancers; and Noism2, for apprentices. Based in Niigata, Noism1 has been active in a variety of places both in Japan and abroad, working with Moscow’s Chekhov International Theatre Festival and performing at the Saito Kinen Festival Matsumoto. Noism2 participates in many events held in the prefecture, and has been increasingly active in the region. Based in Niigata yet actively internationally, Noism0 conveys the expression that only artists can create, not only through dance techniques but also accumulated age and experience. With its global outlook and the dancers’ overpowering bodies and sharp critical minds behind it, the company’s work has been attracting prominence from all quarters as a new model for Japanese theatre culture in the twenty-first century.
http://www.noism.jp

KANAMORI Jo
KANAMORI Jo is a theatre director, choreographer, and dancer. He is the artistic director of the RYUTOPIA Niigata City Performing Arts Center Dance Division and its resident dance company, Noism Company Niigata. Moving to Europe when he was 17 years old, he studied under Maurice Béjart and others. He made his debut as a director and choreographer aged 20 while enrolled at the Nederlands Dans Theater. After 10 years of working for several dance companies in Europe, he returned to Japan and established Noism, Japan’s first resident dance company at a public art center, in 2004. His many accolades include the prestigious Japanese Minister of Education, Culture, Sport, Science and Technology Award, the Niigata Nippo Culture Award, and the Mainichi Art Award. He received the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2021.
https://jokanamori.com/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-rite-of-spring-traces-garden

NEMOTO Shuko

Playwright and Director

Born October 16, 1989 in Tokyo.
At the age of 19, she founded the theater company "GEKKAN NEMOTOSHUKO". As the spearhead of the company, she has written and directed all of the company’s performances, and has also written and directed various produced performances.
In recent years, she has teamed up with various musicians to create completely original musical plays. She is an unpredictable playwright who is always thinking of innovative forms of expression for the theater.
She has been selected as a finalist for the Kishida Kunio Drama Award four times since 2015.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/to-the-greatest-love

NISHIO Kaori / Bird Park

NISHIO Kaori is a playwright, director and the artistic director of Tori Koen (Bird Park) Theater Company. Born in Tokyo in 1985, she spent her childhood in Malaysia. She studied the theater work of TERAYAMA Shuji at the University of Tokyo and the work of OTA Shogo in graduate school at the Tokyo University of Arts. Since founding Tori Koen in 2007, she had written and directed all of the company’s productions until in 2020, the company welcomed three directors as associate artists and NISHIO dedicated herself to playwriting and leading the company. Through a lens of naïveté, her work gently illuminates the lives of the marginalized who live outside “proper” society. Recent projects include a collaborative research project with Malaysian dancer/choreographer Lee Ren Xin titled Karayuki-san. Her plays Kanro (Sweet Rain Dorps hrom Heaven) (2014), Yobu Yonderuyo (Hey God,Job’s Calling you!) (2018), and To the End, One by One on Solitude Hill (2020) have been nominated for the Kishida Kunio Drama Award, the most prestigious authority in Japan’s theatre circles.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/to-the-end-one-by-one-on-solitude-hill

FUTAGO ONIKENBAI

In the cities of Kitagami and Oshu in Iwate Prefecture, there is a spectacular and dynamic form of folk performance called “Onikenbai,” or “Demon Sword Dance.” Its roots are said to go back 1,300 years. One group performing it, “FUTAGO ONIKENBAI,” gave its first performance in 1951, and in 1954, won in the All Japan Folk Dance Competition. This resulted in making “Onikenbai” performance known to people all over Japan. The group boasts a high level of artistic and technical skill and has toured extensively worldwide to such countries as the USA, China and France. The programs of “FUTAGO ONIKENBAI” are entertaining and consist of arrangements of the highlights of traditional pieces. The group tours frequently from its home base and is loved by audiences of all ages.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/furyu-dances-artistic-splendor-and-eternal-bonds

The Akan Ainu Industrial Arts Association

Representative: NISHIDA Masao
Born on Etorofu Island in 1946. In 1954, the Lake Akan Ainu Kotan (village) was established in Kushiro, Hokkaido Prefecture to preserve the Ainu culture in the region, and thus from that time, NISHIDA learned about Ainu culture in his daily life at a young age. In 1973, NISHIDA succeeded as head of his family and while managing a shop selling folk goods, as a central member of the Akan Ainu Culture Preservation Society, he began serious activity in the preservation of and education about Ainu culture. He has performed frequently both inside and outside of Japan as a dancer of traditional Ainu dance, an actor in Yukar plays which feature epics about heroes, and a performer of Ainu Folktale Puppet Theater. In recent years, he has contributed to the invigoration of Ainu culture as the chief priest of the Ainu ritual called Kamuynomi with his easy-to-understand explanations and movements to teach the next generation. In 2017, he received the 21st Ainu Culture Encouragement Award.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/traditional-ainu-dance-reviving-ancestral-memories

MUKAIYAMA Tomoko, MORIYAMA Mirai

MUKAIYAMA Tomoko (Pianist/Artist/Director)

MUKAIYAMA Tomoko is a Dutch-Japanese pianist, visual artist and director based in Amsterdam. In 1991 she was the first Japanese pianist to win the prestigious Dutch Gaudeamus competition and in 1993 she won the Muramatsu Prize in Japan, which is awarded to an outstanding musician. She has been engaged by many prestigious orchestras and ensembles throughout the world, like the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, the London Sinfonietta and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, among many others. Tomoko uses her experience as a concert pianist to bring new dimensions to the concert space - as a multi-modal artist she develops performing arts projects and art installations that combine music with modern dance, fashion and visual art. In 2007, Tomoko Mukaiyama Foundation was founded in The Netherlands and in 2015, and multus was founded in Japan aiming to produce novel collaborations that are inspired by Mukaiyama’s artistic vision of intertwining different contemporary art and music forms.
https://multus.tomoko.nl/

MORIYAMA Mirai

MORIYAMA Mirai was born in Japan in 1984. Moriyama trained in a number of dance disciplines, including jazz, tap, classical ballet, and street dance, before making his stage debut in 1999. Since then, Moriyama has appeared in a long list of stage productions, movies and television dramas. In 2013, Moriyama was nominated for a one-year appointment as Cultural Ambassador by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and as Cultural Ambassador, he spent time with the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company in Israel, working with a diverse array of performing art groups in Belgium and other European countries. Moriyama is confident working across multiple artistic spaces.Moriyama won the 10th Japan Dance Forum Award, Best Dancer in 2015. His recent awards include the 94th Annual Kinemajunpou Best 10 Awards for Best Actor and the 75th Annual Mainichi Film Awards for Best Actor for his performance in the film “Underdog”. “in-side-out”, a short film he directed was nominated as a competition piece in Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2021. Moriyama directed “Re: Incarnation”, a dance performance held at Kiyomizu-temple, Kyoto on 11 March 2021, and appeared in "Unfulfilled Ghost and Monster" written and directed by Toshiki Okada in June 2021. Moriyama performed for the repose of the souls at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020. A post-Butoh performer. https://www.miraimoriyama.com/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/two-in-transit-hara-museum

OiBokkeShi / SUGAWARA Naoki

Centering on actor and care worker Naoki Sugawara, OiBokkeShi (derived from Japanese words meaning “old,” “blur,” and “death”) was founded in 2014 in the town of Wake in Okayama Prefecture. Sugawara works with ninety-four-year-old Tadao Okada, an actor who now cares for his wife with dementia at their home. Working from the principle of introducing theater insights to the places where the elderly are cared for and, conversely, incorporating the profundity of caring for the elderly into theater, the company holds theater performances created in collaboration with the elderly and care workers, and workshops that integrate theatrical methods into caring for people with dementia. The company’s activities attempting to tackle the challenges of the aging society through the unique approach of theater have transcended the fields of theater and caregiving, and attracted much attention in recent years.
Naoki Sugawara co-directed the UK version of his signature work “Theatre of Wandering (Yomichi Ni Hi wa Kurenai)” in September 2021. Also during the same period, Sugawara directed the Japanese online version of Christopher Green’s “The Home” (organized by The Japan Foundation and Saitama Arts Foundation). These are his two international co-productions.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/happy-song

Watanabe Genshiro Shoten / HATASAWA Seigo

Watanabe Genshiro Shoten is a theater company led by playwright/director HATASAWA Seigo. After producing seven plays starting in 2005, HATASAWA launched the company in 2008. The company, based in Atelier Green Park in Aoyagi, Aomori City, has performed its plays all across Japan. They also hold theater workshops for local junior high and high school students.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dontoyuke-dont-you-kill

Seinendan Theater Company / HIRATA Oriza

Seinendan was formed in 1982 with HIRATA Oriza at the helm. Based at the Komaba Agora Theater, they pursue a new style of theater through the contemporary colloquial theater theory advocated by HIRATA Oriza. Since the 1990s, they have had a strong influence on the theater world.
In 1995, HIRATA was awarded the 39th Kishida Kunio Drama Award for Tokyo Notes. (The Kishida Kunio Drama Award is Japan's most prestigious award given to the writer of a play premiered in the previous year.) He works overseas as well, and has been a part of many international projects. He has been especially lauded in France for his plays as well as Seinendan's style of theater and skilled actors.
Seinendan Link, an amorphous unit that conducts original projects within the theater company, serves as an environment that nurtures young artists and has produced many talented playwrights and directors. Since 2020, Seinendan has created and disseminated works from the Ebara Riverside Theatre, its new base in Toyooka, Hyogo Prefecture.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/tokyo-notes-international-version

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kotatsu

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kotatsu-behind-the-scenes

SHIMAJI Yasutake ＆ TAMAKI ROY

SHIMAJI Yasutake

Born in 1978, Nagano. He was a member of Noism (Niigata) from 2004 to 2006 and The Forsythe Company (Frankfurt) from 2006 to 2015. In 2013 he formed the unit Altneu with Hana Sakai. He was selected as a member of Shiseido’s 7th Tsubakikai and has exhibited installation works in addition to presenting performances. He has participated in domestic and international projects and has toured with his own works. While planting himself in the world of dance, he is involved in a wide range of activities.

TAMAKI Roy

Born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1981. Lives and works in Tokyo. Has released six music albums and performed at various music festivals in Japan and foreign countries. In addition, he has created performances, installations, film music, advertising music, picture books, etc. He also creates many collaborative works.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/arika

The NIHONBUYO Association

The NIHONBUYO Association aims to create an affluent society by spreading the NIHONBUYO which is a Japanese traditional performing art. Consisting of the NIHONBUYO dancers of major schools, the association holds a wide variety of events and performances for the inheritance of traditional dance and presentation of new pieces. The association has also been working on various projects that publicize the attractiveness of NIHONBUYO such as workshops for children and the production of videos, while developing the young NIHONBUYO dancers who will lead the next generation. There are 26 branches across Japan contributing to the promotion of local culture.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/bolero-the-legend-of-anchin-and-kiyohime

MITO Ruri

Tokyo-born dancer/choreographer. Mito began studying modern dance at age 5 and choreographed her first piece as a child. While performing as a dancer in works by many prominent choreographers in Japan and abroad, she has regularly created her own high-quality pieces through her group Co. Ruri Mito, launched in 2017. She is the recipient of multiple international awards, including the Tatsumi Hijikata Memorial Award. She has been a Fellow II of the Saison Foundation since 2020. She is active in a wide range of disciplines encompassing dance, film and drama.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/matou

Take Kagura Preservation Association

Kagura are dances dedicated to the gods, and each region in Japan has developed its own distinctive form. Take Kagura is a form dedicated to the Hayachine Shrine in Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture. It is said that the people who have been preserving Take Kagura believe that the spirit of the god is in Mt. Hayachine. It is not clear when Take Kagura began, but it has been performed at least for over 500 years. Until the beginning of the 20th century, it also toured nearby regions.
There are over 40 dances in the repertory of Take Kagura. When Take Kagura is performed, it begins with a series of dances using masks. Then, the very last dance is the “Gongen Mai.” “Gongen” means the temporary form that the god takes in order to appear to people, and in Take Kagura, this is done with a mask representing the head of the lion-like creature called a “shishi.” This dance is believed to be the appearance of the very god of Mt. Hayachine. The dances retain elements of very old forms of folklore, and because Take Kagura is a rare form of Kagura that shows medieval forms of performance to the present, in 1976, it was designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property by the Japanese government. In 2009, it was designated an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kagura-deities-descending

HAYASHI Eitetsu

Taiko artist. After being part of an ensemble for 11 years, in 1982 he became the first “Taiko” soloist. As a pioneer Taiko soloist, he created methods of drumming big “Odaiko” (big taiko) alone on stage, as well as using an ensemble of Taiko drums creatively. Through his many original live works, he has come up with innovative ways of presenting Taiko on stage. In addition to collaborating with international orchestras and artists in a broad range of genres to create new forms of “taiko music,” HAYASHI has gained a following abroad, giving performances in a total of 54 countries. He has presented his unique taiko music in such venues as Carnegie Hall and in appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Through his music, HAYASHI has introduced Japanese culture under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the Japan Foundation and the Agency for Cultural Affairs. In February 2019, he appeared for the fourth year in a row to great acclaim at one of the largest musical festivals in Europe, La Folle Journée de Nantes.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/taiko-rhythms-that-transcend-time

Higashi Futakuchi Puppet Theater

Higashi Futakuchi Puppet Theater is an example of “Ningyo Joruri.” “Ningyo” means “puppet” or “doll” and “Joruri” means “narrative music.” There are many distinctive forms of Ningyo Joruri throughout Japan, some with elements that predate Bunraku, and many inspired by it. Higashi Futakuchi Puppet Theater is performed by a troupe made up mostly of people living in the district of Higashi Futakuchi, Hakusan City in Ishikawa Prefecture. It began 350 years ago and has continued to the present. It uses simple puppets called “deku,” each one having a single operator. The theater’s origins are said to be when
members of the village who went and learned the Ningyo Joruri that was popular in Kyoto then came back and taught it to the other villagers. In the plaintive strains of “Bunya-Bushi” narrative music and the simple yet powerful puppet performances, we get a hint of what early Ningyo Joruri was like. For the people of this village, the puppet theater was a source of entertainment in wintertime when the ground was covered with snow and farming was impossible. The plays are all passed down from the past and emphasize themes such as the love of parent and child, husband and wife, and the loyalty of samurai. In 1977, it was designated a Japanese Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property. Every February, the Higashi Futakuchi Bunya Festival is held at the Higashi Futakuchi Folk Museum.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/traditional-puppet-theater-bound-by-spirits

INOUE Yachiyo Ⅴ

Yachiyo is the fifth head of the Inoue school Kyomai dance. She was born in Kyoto as the daughter of Kanze school Noh actor KATAYAMA Yusetsu (active under the stage name of KATAYAMA Kurouemon IX). She was taught by her grandmother INOUE Aiko (INOUE Yachiyo IV). In 1970 she took a dance name as a full member of the Inoue school. She has received many awards in Japanese arts and culture and in 2000, she succeeded to the name of INOUE Yachiyo V.
In 2013, she received the Medal with Purple Ribbon and in the same year, was made a member of the Japan Art Academy. In addition to becoming a Living National Treasure in 2015, in 2018 she received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kyomai-classical-elegance

YAMAMOTO Suguru

YAMAMOTO Suguru is a playwright and director who leads Theater Collective Hanchu-Yuei. He was born in Yamanashi, Japan in 1987.
Based on his rich cultural experience of appreciating movies, literature, music and art from an early age, his works vividly reflect the modern information society where ethical standards change at an accelerated pace.
He is also active overseas such as showing performances, conducting international co-production and providing his plays in Asian countries and North America.
He was awarded the Best Original Script and the Best Play in Bangkok Theatre Festival 2014 for “Girl X”. He is also The Saison Foundation fellow and a resident artist of Steep Slope Studio. As an ACC Grantee 2018, he has conducted research in New York from September 2019 through February 2020.
In May 2020 he started the new project “Mukougawa-no Engeki” which means “theatre on the other side” and expanded his field of creation to include online activity.
http://www.hanchuyuei2017.com

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/i-cant-die-without-being-born

TSUKAHARA Yuya / TERADA Misako

Choreography: TSUKAHARA Yuya

Tsukahara launched Contact Gonzo in 2006, beginning with performances in parks and on street corners with improvisational bodily contact that looks at times like fighting. The group has presented installations and performances at various art events over the world. Under his own name he has presented “Mukamuri Jamiposu in Three Parts” in the Play program at the Marugame Genichiro Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art and has participated in a theater piece "Prathana" as scenographer and choreographer and was awarded for the staff award of Yomiuri Theater Award. Wow. Currently works as co-DIRECTOR of KYOTO EXPERIMENT.

Performance: TERADA Misako

Studied classic ballet from early childhood. Entered the Ishii Academie de Ballet in 1987 and performed in its main repertoire, composed by Ishii Jun. Formed a dance unit with Jareo Osamu in 1991 and presented work in Japan and overseas. Won double prizes at the 2002 Toyota Choreography Award: the Next-Generation Choreography Award (Grand Prix) and the Audience Award. In 2004, she was named a Arts and Culture Ambassador by the city of Kyoto. She has an established reputation for excellent dance that elevates academic techniques to achieving great originality.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/three-phases-for-a-dancer-to-carry-a-bubble-gum-preparation-transportation-removing

MONO

MONO was originally launched by TSUCHIDA Hideo and his fellow alumni of Ritsumeikan University's student theater troupe in 1989 as B-kyu Practice, adopting its current name in 1991. Their work "Waiting for Chekhov" won the Award for Excellence of the Agency for Cultural Affairs Art Festival in 2009 and the Award for Excellence in the Osaka Cultural Festival in 2017.

TSUCHIDA has written and directed all MONO's productions since 1990. His light-hearted conversational plays that show the humor and sadness caused by misunderstandings has received acclaim. He has written numerous screenplays for TV dramas and movies in parallel with his plays, and also works as an actor.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/soutaiteki-ukiyoe

Nitosha / NAGAI Ai

Nitosha was founded in 1981 by OISHI Shizuka and NAGAI Ai. Since they were both born in the Year of the Rabbit, they named their theater company Nitosha (Two Rabbits). Following Oishi’s departure in 1991, the company has concentrated on works written and directed by NAGAI. It has won numerous theater awards for works such as Dad's Democracy, Three Sisters of the Hagi Family, Got to Make Them Sing!, and Ougai's Mistery. Nitosha seeks to provide theatrical entertainment that makes audiences think.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-air-ver-3-and-he-left

KITAMURA Akiko

KITAMURA Akiko is a choreographer, dancer_and_director. Her background includes ballet, street dance,_and_Indonesian martial arts. She founded her dance company, Leni Basso, in 1994. One of Kitamura’s masterpieces, titled “finks” (2001), has been performed in more than 60 cities.
In 2010, KITAMURA started her solo career_and_engaged in international co-production projects including “To Belong” with Indonesia_and_“Cross Transit” with South East _and_South Asian countries.
KITAMURA studies ‘the use of the human body as a medium’ in practical theatre, applying theories about the human body, direction,_and_dancing. Based on ‘physical thinking’ through the spread_and_deepening of dance expression, she keeps looking for the appeal of human bodies_and_the good communication generated from creative activities_and_art performance.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/echoes-of-calling

YAMADA Un

Dancer ･ Choreographer ･ Director
Learned gymnastics, ballet and Butoh. Went to France.
Established ‘ Co. Un Yamada ’ in 2002.
She leads contemporary dance company which take a leading place in Japan and has been active in Japan, Europe, United States, Asia, Middle East and etc.,
She works choreography and direction on musical and opera, drama, animation, MV, the closing ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and producing event for company, Also she has been active around the world as a solo dancer and nurturing dancers and choreographers. The Japan Cultural Envoy for East Asia in 2014.
The New Face Award of Minister of Education Awards for Fine Arts Japan in 2014.
Japan Cultural Envoy in 2017, (Avtivitiy in 11 countries 23 cities)
The Takaya Eguchi Award 2019.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/cosmos

YANAIHARA Mikuni / YOSHIGAI Nao

Choreography, Direction: YANAIHARA Mikuni

Formed the dance company Nibroll in 1997 as its leader and choreographer. Her distinctive choreography, based on everyday motions and presenting the atmosphere of contemporary Tokyo in a dry manner, has won her invitations to participate in the Oregon Dance Festival, the San Francisco Buto Festival, the Berlin Fusion Festival, the Laokoon Festival and other overseas festivals. She has also been highly praised for her solo performance at The Kitchen, an avant-garde theater in New York. Since hr performance at the opening of the Kichijoji Theater, she has started the Mikuni Yanaihara Project, which is engaged in theatrical works, and engages in their composition and performance. In 2012, her Think Positively, Taimon! won the 56th Kishida Prize for Drama.

Film Directior: YOSHIGAI Nao

Born in 1987 in Japan, Nao Yoshigai is a filmmaker, dancer and choreographer. Her film is “dancing.” She choreographs image and sound for time to focus on “watching and listening” as a motion picture, based on physical sense and phenomena which are unique for living things. ‘Grand Bouquet’ is selected to the Directors’ Fortnight in 2019. Her latest work ‘Shari’ is selected to the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2022.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/coffee

MIYAGI Noho, NISHIE Kishun

MIYAGI Noho

Dancer of the classical repertory of Ryukyu Buyo. Ryukyu Buyo are the dances in the distinctive culture of Okinawa Prefecture, and the most classical part of this repertory comes from the court of the Ryukyu kingdom, which ruled Okinawa before the modern period. MIYAGI was born in Okinawa Prefecture in 1938 and studied the classical dances in Ryukyu Buyo from a young age. In 1961, he became a student of MIYAGI Nozo, the founder of the group of artists called the Miyagi School of dance, and formally learned Kumi-Odori (a classical form of dance to music consisting of a collection of songs and pure instrumental sections) and other forms of Ryukyu Buyo.
His outstanding expressive power and technique, especially with dances featuring female characters, have been recognized not only in Japan, but also around the world. In 1995, he founded his own school called the “Miyagi Honryu Ohtori no Kai.” Beginning in 1990, he became a professor at the Okinawa Prefecture University of Arts and continues to instruct there as Professor Emeritus. He also has been very active in training successors at The National Theatre Okinawa, the main venue for Ryukyu Buyo. In addition, he has long been working to protect Ryukyu Buyo by reviving historical pieces that have been lost as well as by creating new pieces. In 2006, he was named a Living National Treasure as a “Kumi-Odori Dancer.” In 2019, he received the Japan Art Academy Prize and was also recognized as a Person of Cultural Merit.

NISHIE Kishun

Uta-Sanshin (singing while playing the three-stringed “sanshin”) musician, born in Okinawa Prefecture in 1940. From a young age, NISHIE grew up in contact with Uta-Sanshin at festivals and theatrical performances. In 1963 he became a student of the late MIYAZATO Haruyuki, the founder of the group of musicians called Afuso-ryu School, and began formal studies of Ryukyu classical music. In 1983 he became recognized as an instructor in the Genseikai (“String and Voice”) group of Afuso-ryu school musicians specializing in classical Ryukyu music.
He has worked to train his successors formerly as a professor at the Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts and as one of the directors of the Kumi-Odori Preservation Society. For his long years of artistic activity and high level of technical ability, he has been designated as one of the artists to be named as a group as an Intangible Cultural Property - in 2001 for Kumi-Odori and in 2009 for Ryukyu Buyo. In 2011, he was individually designated a Living National Treasure as a performer of Kumi-Odori Ongaku Uta-Sanshin. He is well known for his passionate performances with a voice capable of singing in a wide pitch range, and has been highly praised within the Ryukyu music world for his solo singing at high pitches.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ryukyu-buyo-okinawan-soul

YAMADA Fumihiko

Gagaku Musician. Gagaku is Japan’s traditional performing art with a history of over a thousand years which continues to be performed, especially by the Imperial Household Agency and in some temples and shrines.
YAMADA Fumihiko is a Gakushi (master Gagaku musician) in the Imperial Household Agency Gagaku Ensemble. He was born in Tokyo in 1978. In 1994, he became a member of the Ensemble formally learning the music, dance and history of Gagaku, and in 2000 he was granted the position of Gakushi. In particular, he is noted for his playing of the double reed instrument called the “hichiriki.” Since that time, he has been active in a wide range of fields both inside and outside the Imperial Household Agency. In 2016 he established the Nihon Dento Butai Geijutsu group (Japanese Traditional Performing Arts) together with talented graduates of the Tokyo University of the Arts and became its musical director. The group focuses on Gagaku, but extends to the full range of Japanese traditional performing arts. Alongside his activities as a Gagaku musician, YAMADA is also a producer and director. He works to promote Japanese culture without constraint by preconceived ideas. In 2018, at the Fuji Rock Festival he produced a performance of young Gagaku musicians “Rock from a Thousand Years Ago.”
In 2019, during the various ceremonies for the enthronement of the emperor directed at audiences inside and outside Japan, YAMADA was in charge of performances on the “hichiriki.” In 2021, he was appointed to one of the leadership positions in the Imperial Household Agency as the head of Mikagura, a role responsible for the progression of imperial ceremonies. He is a member of the group of artists for Gagaku who have been designated an Intangible Cultural Property.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/gagaku-beyond-a-thousand-years

FUJIWARA Dozan, FUJIMOTO Akiko, OKAMURA Shintaro

FUJIWARA Dozan

Shakuhachi Player. FUJIWARA Dozan began playing the shakuhachi when he was 10 and studied with Living National Treasure YAMAMOTO Hozan I. Dozan received a degree in graduate studies from the music department of the Tokyo University of the Arts. He served as music director of the program commemorating 60 years of diplomatic relations between Japan and Indonesia. He is very active in promoting Japanese traditional music through lectures and live performances in venues big and small, from schools to concert halls. Meanwhile, he also explores new possibilities for the shakuchachi. He has collaborated with top artists in a wide variety of fields including TOMITA Isao, SAKAMOTO Ryuichi, Kenny G, NOMURA Mansai Ⅱ and the Vienna Philharmonic. He was a guest musician in the Shochiku feature film “Love and Honor (Bushi no Ichibun).” He is active in music education and has written and edited music textbooks for elementary and middle schools. He has the rank of Daishihan (“major teacher”) in the Tozan school of Shakuhachi. In 2020, he received the 71st Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award.

FUJIMOTO Akiko

FUJIMOTO Akiko sings Jiuta songs and plays the koto and shamisen. FUJIMOTO Akiko studied with her grandmother ABE Keiko and her mother FUJII Kunie (Living National Treasure). In 1995, she held her own recital for the first time. Since then, she has given a total of 17 recitals. In 2001, to preserve the classics and to explore new possibilities, she began having “Jiuta Live Session” performances, which have been held 100 times as of November 2021. In addition to performing Jiuta around the world in such countries as the United States, England, the Netherlands, Belgium, Hungary and Switzerland, she has also had 6 performances of Jiuta in Japan with English commentary. She has received numerous awards including the Japan Traditional Cultures Foundation Prize, the Pola Foundation of Japanese Culture Prize, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award, Matsuo Prize of Entertainment Prize for Excellence and the Arts Festival Grand Prize for Music, also, her CD “Yukisumi (Snow and Ink)” won the Arts Festival Grand Prize for Recordings. In the fall of 2021, she received the Medal with Purple Ribbon. She is an instructor at the Seiha Ongakuin, a director of the Japan Traditional Cultures Foundation and the chief representative of the Fujimoto Akiko no Kai group.

OKAMURA Shintaro

OKAMURA received a degree in graduate studies from the music department of the Tokyo University of the Arts. While in school, he performed in the imperial presence in the Toka Gakudo hall in the Imperial Palace. With the recommendation of the Tokyo University of the Arts, he had his debut concert “Okamura Shintaro Recital” in the historical Sogakudo hall on the university campus. He studied Shamisen Kumi-Uta and Koto Kumi-Uta with KIKUFUJI Shou and completed his studies in 2006. He has been a student in the training program for young artists supported by the National Cultural Agency and was a researcher from 2006 to 2007 at the Research Institute for Japanese Traditional Music at the Kyoto City University of Arts. He is an instructor at the Elisabeth University of Music. He won the 34th Miyagi-kai Sokyoku Concours. He received the Encouragement Prize in the 6th Kenjun Kinen Sokyoku Concours, the Grand Prize and the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award of the 22nd Kumamoto National Traditional Music Hogaku Concours.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sankyoku-layered-resonance

NODA Hideki

NODA Hideki is a playwright, director, and actor, and became the artistic director of Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre as of July 2009. NODA launched his first theatre company, Yume no Yuminsha (Dreaming Bohemian) and he had created many works that have been much acclaimed. After disbanding the company in 1992, he went to study in London. In 1993, he established a theatre production company called NODA・MAP. Since then, he has presented numerous acclaimed plays, including “Kill”, “Red Demon”, “Pandora’s Bell”, The Character”, “Q: A Night At The Kabuki”, and “Fakespeare”. He also directs Kabuki and opera. As a standard-bearer of performing arts, he continues working vigorously both inside and outside Japan energetically beyond genres and borders. He was made an Honorary Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009. Other accolades include the Asahi Prize and the Medal with Purple Ribbon.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/red-demon-by-noda-hideki

MAEKAWA Tomohiro

MAEKAWA Tomohiro (1974 –)
In 2003, MAEKAWA Tomohiro founded the performance group Ikiume where he worked as a playwright and director. He has written and produced SF, occult, and horror such as Strolling Invader,The Outside, Mathematical Domino, and The Obelisk of the Beast. He has focused on the relations between humans and invisible forces as well as the depiction of human psychology from the perspective of the shadow world. Two films, Before We Vanish and Foreboding, both based on Strolling Invader and directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, were submitted to the 70th Cannes International Film Festival and to the 68th Berlin International Film Festival.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-sun

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-obelisk-of-the-beast

YAMAUCHI Kenji

YAMAUCHI Kenji has been active for a long time as a TV commercial director and planner. He worked on numerous popular TV commercials including “NOVA”, “Concorde” and “Softbank”. In 2004 he started his career as a playwright and theater director. He founded the theater company Shiroyagi no Kai with the executive producer JOSHIMA Wakano. Since then, he has presented a new play every year. In 2014 he was awarded the 59th Kishida Kunio Drama Award for his drama “Trois Grotesques”.
He also entered the movie industry. In 2011 he wrote and directed “Bing Mitsuko” which was nominated for the Warsaw Film Festival. His “Her Father,My Lover” (2015) and “At the Terrace” (2016) that is based on his drama “Trois Grotesques” were both selected for the Japanese Cinema Splash section of the Tokyo International Film Festival and were invited to the Frankfurt Nippon Connection and Udine Far East Film Festival. His latest film “Dawning on Us” was shown in the special screenings at the TOKYO FILMeX 2021.
His theater company Shiroyagi no Kai continues performing a play every year.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/self-introduction-reader

MORIYAMA Mirai, Ella ROTHSCHILD

Planning, Co-production, Performance: MORIYAMA Mirai

Was born in Japan in 1984. Moriyama trained in a number of dance disciplines, including jazz, tap, classical ballet, and street dance, before making his stage debut in 1999. Since then, Moriyama has appeared in a long list of stage productions, movies and television dramas. In 2013, Moriyama was nominated for a one-year appointment as Cultural Ambassador by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and as Cultural Ambassador, he spent time with the Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company in Israel, working with a diverse array of performing art groups in Belgium and other European countries. Moriyama is confident working across multiple artistic spaces. Moriyama won the 10th Japan Dance Forum Award, Best Dancer in 2015. His recent awards include the 94th Annual Kinemajunpou Best 10 Awards for Best Actor and the 75th Annual Mainichi Film Awards for Best Actor for his performance in the film “Underdog”. “in-side-out”, a short film he directed was nominated as a competition piece in Short Shorts Film Festival & Asia 2021. Moriyama directed “Re: Incarnation”, a dance performance held at Kiyomizu-temple, Kyoto on 11 March 2021, and appeared in "Unfulfilled Ghost and Monster" written and directed by Toshiki Okada in June 2021. Moriyama performed for the repose of the souls at the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games 2020. A post-Butoh performer.
https://miraimoriyama.com

Direction, Art, Choreography, Performance: Ella Rothschild

Ella Rothschild was born in Israel in 1984. Rothschild is a choreographer, multi-disciplinary artist, and a dancer. Rothschild has danced with Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, and Batsheva Dance Company under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin. Currently, Rothschild is dancing for Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot. Since 2010, Rothschild has been creating her own works in collaboration with various artists from different disciplines. Rothschild received the Rosenblum Performing-Arts Award by the city of Tel-Aviv for promising creator of 2016, as well as the ministry cultural award. In 2017 she received the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award for the best solo performer. In 2019 Rothschild's latest production, Futuristic Space, premiered and opened the festival, Yokohama Dance Collection 2019, Japan. In 2020 Ella collaborated with the director Kenichi Tani in a new Japanese production The History Of Humankind for the Kanagawa Arts Theatre. This year Ella created Summer snow, and on the edge of nowhere which are the first and second chapters in a trilogy of artworks.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/judas-christ-with-soy

FUKAIPRODUCE-hagoromo

FUKAIPRODUCE-hagoromo was established in 2004 by actress FUKAI Junko.All works are written, directed and composed by ITOI Yukinosuke. The scores match rhymed lyrics with memorable original melodies in a manner that the group playfully calls "Myosicals" - “myo” meaning strange or wondrous. This style soon attracted attention from theatergoers and has won popularity among fans of Japan’s small scale theaters.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/small-animal-kiss-kiss

Futome Performance

“Futome (=chubby) Performance” was formed in 2009.Almost of their performances have been choreographed and directed by Norimatsu since the start.
Armed with accessibility and powerfulness, Futome Performance has been showing performances at a broad range of venues from a small local event to a theatrical stage, exploring further potentialities of dance based on their motto: “Have fun”.
Futome Performance joined some international dance festival . South Korea, Hongkong, Philippine, Germany, and more.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sento

FUJIMOTO Akiko

FUJIMOTO Akiko was born in Osaka and began studying the koto and the shamisen from an early age under the direction of her grandmother ABE Keiko and her mother FUJII Kunie. Currently appears on stage and broadcast as a performer in the Kyushu lineage. Founded the FUJIMOTO Akiko no Kai as a base for her performance activities. 2121: Received the Shiju Hōshō (medal of honor with purple ribbon. Awarded the Prize for Excellence in the 42nd Matsuo Perfoming Arts Awards. Awarded the Grand Prize for her 17th major recital and the Prize of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology at the 71st Arts Festival sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs. Released the CD album Yukisumi with the pianist SATO Masahiko, which was awarded the
Grand Prize in the record category at the 2020 Arts Festival sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/17th-fujimoto-akiko-concert

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sankyoku-layered-resonance

YANAGIYA Sankyo

Born in 1948, YANAGIYA Sankyo was raised near Tokyo’s Asakusa, an area home to many venues where Rakugo is performed, familiarizing himself with the art from a young age. At 19, he became an apprentice of YANAGIYA Kosan V, and in 1972 took the stage name of YANAGIYA Sankyo.
Since reaching the upper rank of shin-uchi, he’s been active at the forefront of the world of Rakugo storytelling.
With a career spanning 54 years, Sankyo is skilled at classical Rakugo, from comical tales to more movingly dramatic stories called ninjo-banashi. He’s particularly noted for his detailed depiction of daily life in Edo-era tenements, which adds depth and immersion to his storytelling.
In recent years, Sankyo has been actively introducing Japan’s language and culture to non-Japanese through Rakugo. In 2016, he was named “Japan Cultural Envoy” by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan and toured the United States and Canada.
Sankyo has received numerous awards, including the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Prize for Excellence in the Popular Entertainment category in 2013, as well as the Japan Foundation Prize in 2014. In 2017, he was awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon. Since 2006, he has been a member of the board of directors of the RAKUGO Association.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/rakugo-creating-worlds-from-nothing

KURATA Midori

Born in Mie Prefecture in 1987. Graduated from the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Kyoto University of Art and Design (currently Kyoto University of the Arts). Started learning classical and modern ballet at the age of three. She is active as a director, choreographer and dancer, mainly in Kyoto. She explores the possibilities of “dance” by confronting herself and others in each work, using the events and stage structure arising from this to make it stand up as fiction. Since 2016, she has been the leader of the dance group akakilike, consisting of just her and the technical staff, aiming to realize productions in which the performer and staff are involved in works on an equal footing. She is a fellow I of the Saison Foundation.
Recent works include "Family Portrait" , a representative work of the early period of akakilike which premiered in 2016 and has been performed several times, "Sabaku", which premiered in 2017, “Nice to Meet You, Good Day, Who Am I Today?”, which premiered in 2018 and was created together with residents of the Higashi Kujo area of Kyoto, and “Like the summer sea glittering with so many fun things that is a waste to spend time sleeping, like a green garden flooded with sunlight, like a sky spreading to infinity, so clear and blue as to drive you crazy,” which premiered in 2019 and was created together with members of Kyoto DARC, a drug addiction rehabilitation center.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/five-minute-walk-from-youtube-hot-springs-station-higashi-kujo-shinjuku-ku-mie-prefecture

KUJIRAI Kentaro and OKUYAMA Barabbas

KUJIRAI Kentaro

Butoh dancer, eurythmist, and choreographer. Born in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture, in 1980. Studied under KASAI Akira. Director of KENTARO KUJIRAI Konpeito. Based in Tokyo and Sendai, he gives stage performances and conducts workshops. He also pursues artistic activities in dance units such as CORVUS, Eureka!! Project, and KENTARO KUJIRAI & BARABAS OKUYAMA. He has cooperated with artists in various fields of expression, such as poets, painters, photographers, musicians, and choirs, creating original works that transcend genres. He won the Newcomer Award at the 50th Dance Critics Society of Japan Awards and the Newcomer Award in the Dance Division of the Miyagi Prefecture Art Encouragement Prize in 2019.

KUJIRAI Kentaro’s Official website: http://kujiraikentaro.com

OKUYAMA Barabbas

In 2001, he joined the butoh dance company, Dairakudakan, studying under MARO Akaji. Since then, he has taken part in all of Dairakudakan’s main performances. In 2016, he became an independent performer. In recent years, he has presented various solo works in which he explores how a dancer should perform on stage on his own. He has also participated in stage productions by Josef NADJ, KASAI Akira, ITO Naoko, HIRAYAMA Motoko, KASAI Mitsutake, KURODA Ikuyo, KUJIRAI Kentaro, Karagumi Theater Company, Shinjuku Ryozampaku and Project Nyx, as well as various international dance festivals.
Using butoh as the background of his physical methods of expression, he has been developing activities that are not restricted to any particular genre such as dance, theater or video works, exploring further possibilities for his body based on the theme of standing with tension and strength.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/a-hum-san-sui-mountains-and-rivers-from-alpha-to-omega

Ella Rothschild / OHMAKI Shinji

Choreography, Direction: Ella Rothschild

Ella Rothschild was born in Israel in 1984. Rothschild is a choreographer, multi-disciplinary artist, and a dancer. Rothschild has danced with Inbal Pinto and Avshalom Pollak Dance Company, and Batsheva Dance Company under the artistic direction of Ohad Naharin. Currently, Rothschild is dancing for Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot. Since 2010, Rothschild has been creating her own works in collaboration with various artists from different disciplines. Rothschild received the Rosenblum Performing-Arts Award by the city of Tel-Aviv for promising creator of 2016, as well as the ministry cultural award. In 2017 she received the Israeli Ministry of Culture Award for the best solo performer. In 2019 Rothschild's latest production, Futuristic Space, premiered and opened the festival, Yokohama Dance Collection 2019, Japan. In 2020 Ella collaborated with the director Kenichi Tani in a new Japanese production The History Of Humankind for the Kanagawa Arts Theatre. This year Ella created Summer snow, and on the edge of nowhere which are the first and second chapters in a trilogy of artworks.

Art：Ohmaki Shinji

Was born in 1971 in Gifu, Japan. Shinji Omaki develops his creative activities based on the theme of “Existence”.With key words such as atmosphere, time, gravity, and memory, he attempts physical spatiotemporal creation to discover ambiguous and elusive existences using various materials and methods. After being selected to exhibit his work "Opened Eyes Closed Eyes" at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government's public exhibition "Tokyo Wonder Wall 2000" Ohmaki has been actively holding ambitious solo exhibitions, receiving much attention for his works: "ECHO" (Shiseido Gallery, Art Tower Mito, Contemporary Art Museum Kumamoto, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo), "Liminal Air" (Tokyo Wonder Site, Gallery A4, 21 Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Asia Pacific Triennial 2009, The Hakone Open-Air Museum, etc.), "Memorial Rebirth" (Yokohama Triennale 2008 etc). In recent years, his works have been exhibited all over the world, including installation works on stage at Hermes (Sèvres store) and Louis Vuitton fashion shows in France (Paris), Yokohama Dance Collection 2019, and public art in IJlst (Netherlands), Shanghai (China), and other places in Japan.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/futuristic-space

Port B / Akira Takayama

Director and artist. Born in 1969. He formed the theater company Port B in 2003. Major works include "Wagner Project", "McDonald’s Radio University", "Heterotopia Project", "The Complete Manual of Evacuation" etc. An associate artist at the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm since 2014. He has participated in major theater festivals such as Festival/Tokyo, Wiener Festwochen, Kunsten Festival des Arts, exhibitions at Maison Hermès, Mori Art Museum, Tai Kwun and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, and major art festivals such as Yokohama Triennale, Sharjah Biennial, Biennale of Sydney, and Aichi Triennale.
http://www.portb.net

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/tokyo-olympic

ISHINHA

ISHINHA Theater Company is an Osaka-based theater company formed in 1970. Since their piece Shonen Machi in 1991, they have established the style of "jan-jan opera" in which many of the lines are broken down into words and spoken in Osaka dialect with a rhythm of 5 or 7 beats. In pursuit of the ephemerality of open air performance, ISHINHA has not only created open-air stages and seats with even accommodation in remote islands, mountains, and "air pocket" spaces in cities. After the death of its leader, Yukichi Matsumoto, in 2016, Ishinha disbanded after their 2017 performance of "AMAHARA" in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/twilight

HORI Natsuko / OTA Shogo

HORI Natsuko

Actress and director with the Seinendan Theater Company.
She trained under playwright/director HIRATA Oriza since she was a student at J. F. Oberlin University.
In 2005, she became an actress with the Seinendan Theater Company. Since then, she performed in numerous Seinendan’s signature works and new works including “Toky Notes” and “Citizens of Seoul”.
In 2019, she founded her own group Hori Kikaku.
The group’s production is adapted and directed by HORI, specializing in the themes of death and absence.
In 2019, she staged “Toky Notes” by HIRATA Oriza.
“The Water Station” staged in 2020 was the second production of Hori Kikaku.

OTA Shogo

Playwright, director. Born in 1939 in Jinan, China. He matriculated at but withdrew from the Faculty of Politics and Economics at the Peers University in Tokyo. The selection of one of his plays for performance by a university theatre group gave him the opportunity to become involved in the praxis of theatre. He was a founding member of the Theatre of Transformation (1968-88). Becoming its head in 1970, he wrote his debut play, "Nine Scenes" on a Omnibus, in the same year. In 1978 he received the prestigious Kishida Drama Prize for "The Tale of Komachi Told by the Wind" (1977), which was first performed on a no stage. His theatre company received the Kinokuniya Theatre Award in 1984. In 1990, OTA was appointed arts director of the Shonandai Civic Theatre in Fujisawa, Kanagawa, and served for a decade.His major plays include "The Water Station," "The Tale of Komachi Told by the Wind," and others; his major essay collections include "Flying and Chinning" (1975). He is dedicated to international cultural exchange and has toured abroad many times with his own troupe and conducted collaborative projects with foreign artists.
He passed away at the age of 67 in 2007 .

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-water-station-by-ota-shogo

Cigare Sisters / MAEDA Shiro

Cigare Sisters

Cigare Sisters are a unit formed by Ayana Shiihashi and Junko Miyabe. Miyabe, who is a member of Gotandadan Theater Company led by Maeda Shiro, and Shiihashi, a professional rakugo performer, gradually became aware of each other when people said that they looked and talked alike. They formed the Cigare Sisters after the performance of Oyasumanasai in 2016. Oyasumanasai is a conversation play written by Shiro Maeda, which was first performed by Gotandadan in 2003.

MAEDA Shiro

Born in 1977, Shiro Maeda is a playwright, director, actor, novelist, film director, and screenwriter. He founded the theatre company GOTANNDADAN in 1997 and won the 52nd Kishida Drama Prize for Isn’t Anyone Alive? (2007). He continues to write and direct plays for his theatre company and beyond. As a novelist, he won the 22nd Mishima Yukio Prize for The Mermen of Summer Water (2009), and was nominated for the 137th Akutagawa Prize for The Great Life Adventure (2007) and for the 158th Akutagawa Prize for Triple Bind (2017). He also won the 46th Galaxy Award for Excellence for his teleplay for the NHK drama Shopping (2009) and the Mukouda Kuniko Award for his script for the NHK drama Seven Minutes on Foot (2015). In this way, he has garnered critical attention for his success on stage, in fiction, and on television. In 2013, he made his directorial debut with the film adaptation of his book The Extreme Sukiyaki. He won the 8th TAMA Film Award for Best Emerging Director for Kako: My Sullen Past (2016), which was shown at the 19th Shanghai International Film Festival. He is currently attracting prominence in a wide variety of fields.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/sweet-waking

ONODERA Shuji × SHUTO Yasuyuki

ONODERA Shuji

Onodera Shuji learned mimes at Mime Institute of Japan. He was a member of “Performance Theater Mizu To Abura (Water and oil)” from 1995-2006. After that, he stayed in France for 1 year as a trainee member of Artist Overseas Training System of Cultural Agency. He formed Company Derashinera after returning to Japan in 2008. He has attracted attention across generations in its own production based on the movement of the mimes.He has won awards including the 3rd Japan Dance Forum Award and Best Staff Award of the 18th Yomiuri Theater Award.

SHUTO Yasuyuki

SHUTO Yasuyuki joined The Tokyo Ballet when he was fifteen and made his debut as principal dancer at nineteen. As principal, he starred in many productions ranging from classical works to productions by well-known contemporary choreographers including Boléro and M by Maurice BÉJART, and works by Jirí KYLIÁN and John NEUMEIER. After retiring from the troupe in 2004, he appeared in productions by choreographers and directors in Japan and abroad including Swan Lake by Matthew BOURNE and Apocrifu by Sidi Larbi CHERKAOUI. He has also performed his own productions. In recent years, SHUTO has branched out to act in films and television dramas. He has been presented with many awards including the 62nd Art Encouragement Prize awarded by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kuhaku-ni-ochita-otoko-a-man-fallen-into-a-void

LOLO

Formed in 2009, LOLO is a theater company led by playwright and director Naoyuki Miura. Since 2015 LOLO has been presenting the "Itsukou" Series, a ten part ensemble play series set in a high school, with a running time of under 60 minutes or less. With the aim of revitalizing high school theater and to make it easier for high school students to perform the plays, the script of Itsukou Series is available to the public free of charge, and students up to high school can watch and perform the play for free.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/itsukou-series-vol-7-i-cant-hibernate-with-books-as-a-pillow

MARUYAMA Junko / Young Doo JUNG

Art, Direction: MARUYAMA Junko

Graduated BFA in Hunter College of The City University of New York in 2002. With a concept of circulation and reproduction, she explores the border between existing and non-existing by creating the cycles of matter of variable materials such as waste materials, ice cream, plastics, and soap. Her medium has expanded from traditional drawing and sculpture to installation using multiple media and collaborations with other genres. Her awards and achievements include the second prize at Free Art Free (2004); The Charitable Trust Oki Memorial Artists Grant (2007); Judge’s Special Award in Taipei/Yokohama Artist Exchange Program (2009); and she is currently in Germany with the Program of Overseas Study for Upcoming Artists, the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan.

Choreography, Direction: JUNG Young Doo

Born in Korea. Began to study dance in his twenties after working as an actor. He is renowned for combining sophistocated dance methodology and clear concepts with subtle, finely grained movements. At the Yokohama Dance Collection 2004, he participated in the solo and duo competition and received both the Yokohama Art Foundation Award and the French Ambassador’s Young Choreographer Award. One of Korea’s leading choreographers, he is active globally, while based in both Korea and Japan.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/silent-flower

Baobab

Baobab was established in 2009 and director KITAO Wataru creates and choreographs all works. Their choreography is indigenous, rhythmic, and uniquely dynamic.
They have held 13 individual performance shows and been invited to various festivals in Japan and abroad, including Tokyo Festival 2021, Dance New Air, San Francisco Arts Festival 2018, and KYOTO EXPERIMENT.
Since 2016, Baobab has been organizing the biennial dance festival "DANCE×Scrum!" focusing on young artists.
Wataru has been awarded numerous prizes over his career, which includes a nomination in the “Outstanding Performer”category in New York’s Bessie Awards in 2020. KITAO become a judge for the Yokohama Dance Collection 2021 Competition II.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/baobab-reborn-project-vol-6-please-laughing-frame

MARO Akaji

MARO Akaji was born in Nara prefecture, Japan in 1943.
In 1965, under the strong influence of butō pioneer HIJIKATA Tatsumi, he co-founded the theater company Jōkyō Gekijō with renowned Japanese actor and director KARA Jurō. In their productions, MARO was acknowledged as an actor who embodied KARA’s “privileged physical theory” with his own spectacular acting approach and inspired many performing artists during the 1960s and 70s.
In 1966, he studied under HIJIKATA Tatsumi.
In 1972, MARO founded his own company Dairakudakan, where he brought his spectacular performing technique into butoh dance pieces. One of his basic teachings, Temptenshiki, became controversial not only in Japan but also in other countries after its shocking debut at numerous dance festivals in France and the U.S. in 1982. Since then, butoh has held a strong influence on the international dance scene. With the belief ichinin ippa (“one dancer, one school”- the idea that each individual should be able to express/create her/his own movement vocabulary), MARO has fostered emerging dancers and has produced famous butoh groups such as AMAGATSU Ushio (Sankai Juku), IKEDA Carlotta (Ariadone) and MUROBUSHI Ko, among others.
As an actor, dancer and director/choreographer, MARO has been constantly challenged to cross the borders of different art forms. He has also starred in such films as Kikujiro (directed byKITANO Takeshi), Room (directed by SONO Shion) and Kill Bill (directed by Quentin Tarantino).

*Awards and Prizes
2019: 51th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
2018: First Taneda Santōka Award (Shunyōdō Publishing, Japan)
2018: 55th Prix de la critique (Association professionnelle de la critique de danse, France)
2016: 64th Dance Art Award (Tokyo Shimbun, Japan)
2013: Dance Forum Grand Prix (Japan)
2012: 44th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
2007: 39th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
2006: Commissioner’s Award (Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan)
1999: 31th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
1996: 28th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
1987: 19th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)
1974: 6th Dance Critics Association Award (Japan)

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dream-cambrian

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/oboro

NAKAMURA Shido II

Kabuki Actor. Born in Tokyo in 1972, NAKAMURA Shido’s father was OGAWA Mikio (kabuki name NAKAMURA Shido I), the third son of NAKAMURA Tokizo III, who was known as one of the most famous onnagata female role specialists of the mid-20th century. His uncles include movie actors YOROZUYA Kinnosuke I and NAKAMURA Katsuo. He made his first appearance on stage at the Kabukiza Theatre at the age of 8 and was given the stage name of NAKAMURA Shido II. He has taken on the challenge of kabuki roles from the most classic to new plays. He has made kabuki roles his own, like Danjo in “Kenuki (The Whiskers Tweezers)” where he expresses the leisurely and larger-than-life feeling of the bombastic aragoto style of acting, one of the oldest styles of kabuki acting, and in the 20th century play “Mabuta no Haha (The Mother on the Eyelids),” he has given pathos to the feeling of Chutaro, a wandering gangster who nevertheless longs for the mother that rejected him. Also, in 2015 he starred in a new play based on a picture book “Arashi no Yoru ni (On the Night of a Storm)” and in 2016, he began a series of collaborations with the Virtual Singer Hatsune Miku, combining kabuki and the newest technology in a series called “Cho Kabuki.”

He has continually faced new challenges both in Japan and abroad. He has appeared in a wide variety of movies and TV dramas ranging from period pieces to contemporary stories. He has also appeared in foreign films like “Red Cliff” and “Letters from Iwo Jima.”

For his appearance as Dragon in the 2002 movie “Ping Pong,” Shido won the 26th Japan Academy Newcomer Actor Prize, the 40th Golden Arrow Newcomer Prize for Film Actors and the 57th Mainichi Film Festival Sponichi Grand Newcomer Prize. In 2003, he also received the 20th Asakusa Entertainers Newcomer Prize.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kabuki-the-legacy-of-eccentric-spectacle

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/japanese-traditional-performing-arts-discovering-with-new-eyes

mamagoto

mamagoto (Child’s Play) was established in 2009 by stage writer/director Yukio Shiba as a junior company of the renowned Seinendan theatrical group. “Our Planet”, the company’s maiden production, received the 54th Kishida Kokushi Drama Award in 2010. It played the following year in six cities across Japan and was revived again in Tokyo and Shodoshima Island in 2015. This drama has become Mr. Shiba’s signature piece.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/our-planet

Romeo Castellucci

Director, creator of sets, lights and costumes, Romeo Castellucci is known over the world for creating a theater based on the totality of arts and aimed at an integral perception of the work.
He was director of the Theater section at the Venice Biennale, “Artiste Associé” at the Avignon Festival and is currently “Grand Invitée” at the Milano Triennale and guest director at the Schaubhüne in Berlin.
Awarded the title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic and an honorary degree from the University of Bologna, he is a member of the Accadémie Royale de Belgique and received, among other international awards, the Golden Lion at the Biennale di Venice and two Golden Masks for Opera.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/from-kenji-miyazawa-yumenoshima-the-phenomenon-called-i

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/from-kenji-miyazawa-yumenoshima-ground

AMEYA Norimizu

Playwright, director, and art performer. He founded Tokyo Grand Guignol in 1983 and gained attention for performances strikingly staged amid the iron and concrete of a disused factory. He would subsequently focus on visual art and shifted away entirely from creative activities from 1995, before making a return to theatre with his staging of the play "Transfer Student" at Shizuoka Performing Arts Center in 2007. He then restarted his wide-ranging creative activities. He won the 58th Kishida Kunio Drama Award for "Blue Tarp" in 2014.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/from-kenji-miyazawa-yumenoshima-ground

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/from-kenji-miyazawa-yumenoshima-the-phenomenon-called-i

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/five-minute-walk-from-youtube-hot-springs-station-higashi-kujo-shinjuku-ku-mie-prefecture

Kids Launch Project

"This project, in which adult performers take the creative ideas of children as their starting point, was launched in 2017 based on a concept by NODA Hideki, artistic director of Tokyo Metropolitan Theater. The final piece was developed by three seasoned artists––author/performer/actor IWAI Hideto, actor/dancer MORIYAMA Mirai, and singer-songwriter MAENO Kenta––based on a series of workshops with youngsters.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/namuhamudahamu

contact Gonzo

contact Gonzo is a collective from Osaka, Japan, that combines improvisational physical contact with legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson’s “gonzo” aesthetics.They work in public sites mountains, rivers, galleries, museums, theaters and alleys around the world, with performances that may seem either a street mosh or a sophisticated dance.contact Gonzo is not only a name of a company but also a method they have developed.Besides urban interventions, they also work on creations of installations, videos, photography, editing the magazines and creating performance piece for theaters and international dance festivals.
Saison Foundation Fellow from 2011 - 2018.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/xapaxnannan-our-future-sports

Monochrome Circus（Kyoto）

Monochrome Circus is an internationally active dance company based in Kyoto, led by Kosei Sakamoto. Focusing on developing and spreading “contact improvisation”, the company expands its field of activity beyond theatre and performs with objects or in spaces such as furniture, communities, shopping districts, architectures and landscapes in addition to numerous theatre pieces.
Monochrome Circus has participated in international performing arts festivals including Festival d'automne à Paris, Bates Dance Festival, Hong Kong Arts Festival and Setouchi Triennale. The company has also given performances in Japan, Europe, USA and a dozen Asian countries. In 2002 Kosei Sakamoto trained in NY, funded by a grant from the Asian Cultural Council. He received the Best Young Artist Award by the City of Kyoto in 2007.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-green-table

Akira Kasai / Kaibunsha

Akira Kasai: As a young man in the 1960s, Kasai became friends with Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, and gave numerous solo Butoh performances. He led Tenshi-kan in the 70s and trained many Butoh dancers. He studied eurythmy in Germany from 1979 to 1985. After returning to Japan, he was away from the dance world for 15 years, but returned with “Seraphita.” Since then, he has given many performances inside and outside Japan, and has been acclaimed as the “Nijinsky of Butoh.”
Kaibunsha: Established in 1985 as an organization to plan and produce the performing arts. It was in charge of the self-producing activities at the Shonandai Cultural Center from 1992 to 1997. Kaibunsha has produced domestic and international performances of Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, Dumb Type, among others, and contributed to international exchange in the performing arts.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dance-by-akira-kasai-x-piano-by-yuji-takahashi-crystal-labyrinth

Nibroll

Led by choreographer YANAIHARA Mikuni, artists’ collective Nibroll is known for its eschewal of mannered, orderly dance performance in favor of works that constantly explore the potential in marginal forms of expression. In keeping with YANAIHARA’s status as a former winner of Japan’s foremost drama award, “Romeo OR Juliet” employs a wealth of theatrical devices, bolstered by video projections from TAKAHASHI Keisuke and musical arrangements by SKANK, which give further shape to the play’s central concept.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/romeo-or-juliet

MORIYAMA Kaiji × HIBINO Kodue × KAWASE Kohske

MORIYAMA Kaiji

Born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 1973. After his performance at the 2001 Edinburgh Festival, he was described as “One of the most talented dancers at this year’s Fringe.” From there, he began releasing a series of dance productions which he directed, choreographed, and performed. His 2005 performance of KATANA was praised as “a dance of amazing concentration by an amazing dancer” by the New York Times. In 2007, he was invited to La Biennale di Venezia. In 2013, he received the 63rd Geijutsu Sensho National Award for New Artists and two other awards for his The UNIVERSE of MANDALA production as well as being appointed as a Japan Cultural Envoy. His Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland production toured 17 cities in Japan. In 2019, he directed his first opera production, Don Giovanni. In 2020, he was the director, choreographer, and set and costume designer for the New National Ballet of Japan’s production of RYUUGUU – The Turtle Princess. In 2021, he performed in Kaija SAARIAHO’s opera "Only the Sound Remains",
and directed, choreographed as chief for TOKYO2020 Paralympics Opening Ceremony. He continues his passionate pursuit of artistic expression as both a dancer and a director in a wide range of media.

HIBINO Kodue

Costume artist. Born in Shizuoka Prefecture and graduated from the Design Department of the Tokyo University of the Arts. She has showcased her works as a costume artist in a wide range of media and venues including advertising, theater plays, dance performances, ballet productions, films, and television. She is currently the set and costume designer for the Nihongo de Asobo program on NHK Educational TV (E tele). She has also served as the costume designer for numerous stage productions, including those written by NODA Hideki, as well as designing costumes for Circus (New National Theatre, Tokyo) and The Little Prince (Kanagawa Arts Theatre), both directed and choreographed by MORIYAMA Kaiji.

KAWASE Kohske

Composer and artist. Born in Kyoto in 1970 and raised in Tokyo. His works incorporate both musical expression as well as the fusion of music and visual elements such as light. In 2010, his signature work, BEARINGS GLOCKEN II, was chosen as a Jury Selection in the Japan Media Arts Festival Art Division. In 2013, he released 3 albums related to his LIVE BONE project.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/zero

SHUTO Yasuyuki & NAKAMURA Megumi

NAKAMURA Megumi

After winning the Professional Level Prize at the Prix de Lausanne international competition in 1988, NAKAMURA Megumi relocated to Europe. She danced at Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo before joining the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT), led by Jiří KYLIÁN, where she performed in productions by top international choreographers. After retiring from the NDT, she coached other dancers in KYLIÁN’s choreographies and worked as an instructor at the Opéra national de Paris and other ballet companies and schools worldwide. Since returning to Japan in 2007, NAKAMURA has focused on developing as a choreographer. She has expanded her activities to produce works for The National Ballet of Japan at the New National Theater, Tokyo. NAKAMURA Megumi has been presented with many awards including The Art Encouragement Prize awarded by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, and the Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon.


SHUTO Yasuyuki

SHUTO Yasuyuki joined The Tokyo Ballet when he was fifteen and made his debut as principal dancer at nineteen. As principal, he starred in many productions ranging from classical works to productions by well-known contemporary choreographers including Boléro and M by Maurice BÉJART, and works by Jirí KYLIÁN and John NEUMEIER. After retiring from the troupe in 2004, he appeared in productions by choreographers and directors in Japan and abroad including Swan Lake by Matthew BOURNE and Apocrifu by Sidi Larbi CHERKAOUI. He has also performed his own productions. In recent years, SHUTO has branched out to act in films and television dramas. He has been presented with many awards including the 62nd Art Encouragement Prize awarded by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology.


AOKI Naoya

AOKI Naoya started to dance at age sixteen and was a member of the Noism Company Niigata from 2004 to 2008. His choreographies include Tagaini_so for the Japan Ballet Association. He was awarded the Grand Prix at the Dance Summit in Japan 2017 and has been presented with the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award. AOKI is the founder of the Aoki Naoya Group Work Project. In recent years, he has broadened his perspective on the applications of dance in society organizing lessons at elementary schools and public workshops at community centers.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/a-chronicle-of-the-time-yard

TAKEMOTO Oritayu VI, TSURUSAWA Seisuke, KIRITAKE Kanjuro III

TAKEMOTO Oritayu VI

Joruri voice artist for the Bunraku-za troupe of Ningyo Joruri puppet theatre. Born in 1975 in Osaka. He comes from a family of Bunraku performers, but although he himself is a narrator, his family’s tradition is Bunraku shamisen. His grandfather was the noted Bunraku shamisen player, TSURUSAWA Dohachi II, whose adopted son is TSURUSAWA Seiji, recognized as a Living National Treasure and an active member of Bunraku-za today. In addition to his uncle Seiji, other members of his family are also Bunraku shamisen players. His great-uncle was Living National Treasure TSURUSAWA Seiroku IV and his younger brother is TSURUSAWA Seiki. He became apprenticed to Bunraku narrator TOYOTAKE Sakitayu (now a Living National Treasure) in 1983 and took the name TOYOTAKE Sakihodayu. His first appearance on stage was in 1986 in the small hall of the National Bunraku Theatre and in 2018, he took the name of TAKEMOTO Oritayu VI. He is active at home and abroad. In addition to the regular performances of Bunraku at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka and the National Theatre in Tokyo, he has also participated in overseas tours. To create new Bunraku fans and popularize Bunraku with children, he has been a part of a wide range of activities in a variety of genres including regular appearances on the children’s program “Nihongo de Asobo (Fun with Japanese)” on NHK’s education channel. He has won multiple awards including the Sakuya Konohana Award in 2011, the Matsuo Performing Arts New Artist Prize in 2013, the Osaka Cultural Festival Award Grand Prix in 2013, the Kansai Genki Cultural Category Award New Power Prize in 2018, and the National Theatre Bunraku Award Bunraku Outstanding Performance Prize in 2019.

TSURUSAWA Seisuke

Shamisen player for the Bunraku-za troupe of Ningyo Joruri puppet theatre. Born in Osaka in 1952. He became apprenticed to Bunraku shamisen player TSURUSAWA Dohachi II in 1973. In the following year 1974, he assumed his current name and made his debut at the Asahi-za Theatre in Osaka. Following the death of his teacher Dohachi II in 1981, he began training under his teacher’s adoptive son, TSURUSAWA Seiji from 1982. In addition to the regular performances of Bunraku at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka and the National Theatre in Tokyo, he has also participated in tours of Bunraku outside Japan as well as working to popularize Bunraku by such things as appearing in NHK programs introducing the traditional performing arts. He has composed the music for many Bunraku plays, both composing the shamisen and vocal music for plays from Bunraku’s history where the text has been preserved, but the original music has been lost and composing music for totally new plays. He has won multiple awards including the Osaka Cultural Festival Award Encouragement Prize in 1987, the Matsuo Performing Arts New Artist Prize in 1994, the National Theatre Bunraku Award Bunraku Grand Prize in 1999, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Award New Artists Prize and the Osaka Performing Arts Award Encouragement Prize in 2002, the National Theatre Bunraku Award Bunraku Special Prize in 2013, the Osaka City Citizen Award in 2016, the Japan Art Academy Prize and Imperial Prize in 2018, and the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2020.

KIRITAKE Kanjuro III

Puppeteer for the Bunraku-za troupe of Ningyo Joruri puppet theatre. Born in Osaka in 1953. His father was puppeteer KIRITAKE Kanjuro II (d. 1986), who was designated a Living National Treasure. In 1967, he entered the training program sponsored by the Bunraku Kyokai (Bunraku Association) as a puppeteer. In 1968, the following year, he became a student of YOSHIDA Minosuke III, a Living National Treasure famous for his performances of female roles and took the name of YOSHIDA Minotaro. He made his debut in 1968 at the Osaka Mainichi Hall. In 2003, he succeeded to his father’s name to become KIRITAKE Kanjuro III. Combining the skills he learned from his father and those of his teacher, he performs both male and female roles. In addition to the regular performances of Bunraku at the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka and the National Theatre in Tokyo, he has also participated in many overseas tours of Bunraku. He has won multiple awards including the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Award in 2008, the Medal with Purple Ribbon, the Japan Art Academy Prize in 2010, the Osaka Cultural Award in 2012, the Mainichi Art Award in 2016, and the Pola Traditional Performing Arts Award Outstanding Performing Prize in 2018.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/bunraku-storytelling-music-puppetry

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/japanese-traditional-performing-arts-discovering-with-new-eyes

NOMURA Mansai

Izumi school Kyogen actor. Born in Tokyo in 1966, he studied under his grandfather, the late NOMURA Manzo VI and his father, NOMURA Mansaku II, both Living National Treasures. He is a member of the group of Kyogen actors that together have been designated Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties. He established a series of Kyogen recitals called “Kyogen Gozaru no Za” to present classical Kyogen plays to modern audiences. He has appeared in many performances of Noh and Kyogen both in Japan and abroad and has worked to popularize Kyogen. He has also acted in contemporary dramas, movies and TV dramas, and has directed and appeared in modern stage works that make use of traditional performance techniques. These stage productions include “Atsushi: Sangetsuki, Meijinden (Nakajima Atsushi’s Sangetsuki and Meijinden),” KAWAI Shoichiro’s “Kuni Nusubito” (based on Shakespeare’s “Richard III”) and “Shigosen no Matsuri (Requiem on the Great Meridian) ,” KINOSHITA Junji’s dramatization of “The Tales of the Heike” using a wide variety of contemporary and traditional performers. He has also made Kyogen well known among children with his appearances in the children’s program “Nihongo de Asobo (Fun with Japanese) ” on NHK’s education channel. Whatever the genre he is appearing in, his background in the traditional performing arts allows him to make a unique contribution. At the same time, through all his activities, he is thinking of what Kyogen should be today. In 1994 he travelled to the UK through the Artist Overseas Training Program under the Agency for Cultural Affairs. He has won multiple awards including the New Artist Award (1999) and the Outstanding Performance Prize (2018) in the Annual Arts Festival sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Award New Artists Prize, the Asahi Performing Arts Awards, the Kinokuniya Theatre Award, the Mainichi Arts Award Senda Koreya Prize, and the Grand Prize for Best Play of the Yomiuri Theatre Prize.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/kyogen-the-humor-of-frailty-tolerance

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/japanese-traditional-performing-arts-discovering-with-new-eyes

KATAYAMA Kurouemon X

Born in Kyoto in 1964, KATAYAMA Kurouemon X is a shite (main actor) in the Kanze school of Noh. His father was Noh actor KATAYAMA Yusetsu (d. 2015), who performed for most of his career as KATAYAMA Kurouemon IX, but his family is also closely associated with the distinctive Kyomai dance style, the classical Japanese dance of the Gion geisha district in Kyoto which has been strongly influenced by Noh. His grandmother was INOUE Yachiyo IV, who was a “Living National Treasure” and the fourth head of the Inoue school of Kyomai, and his elder sister is the fifth head, INOUE Yachiyo V (also a Living National Treasure). He studied Noh under his father and KANZE Tetsunojo VIII. He leads the regularly scheduled Katayama Noh Program performances. He performs frequently all over Japan and also in tours of Noh abroad to Europe and the United States. He is also interested in promoting Noh with younger generations through such activities as giving Noh lessons in school classrooms, the creation of picture books based on the stories of classical Noh plays and producing performances of Noh through CG. He assumed the name Kurouemon X in 2011. He is a member of the group of Noh actors that together have been designated Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties.
He has received numerous prizes including the Kyoto Prefecture Cultural Prize Encouragement Award in 1997, the Kyoto City Best Young Artist Award in 2003, the New Artist Award in the Annual Arts Festival sponsored by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2004, the Kyoto Prefecture Cultural Prize for Artistic Achievement in 2013, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Award New Artists Prize in 2015 and the Hosei University Kanze Hisao Memorial Noh Award in 2017. He is the chairman of the Kyoto Kanze Association and director of the Association to Preserve Katayama Nohgaku and Kyomai.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/noh-mystery-myth-movement

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/japanese-traditional-performing-arts-discovering-with-new-eyes

BATIK

KURODA Ikuyo started taking ballet lessons at the age of 6, and in 1997 went to London to study contemporary dance at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance. Then in 2002, after winning the National Council Prize at the Yokohama Platform of Rencontres Chorégraphiques Internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis (formerly, The Bagnolet International Competition) in February, her all-women BATIK troupe set up as a professional dance company in April the same year with a focus on the choreography of KURODA Ikuyo. As a company rooted in ballet techniques, BATIK is firmly committed to the aspect of dance among the diversifying expressions in contemporary dance.
KURODA’s radical and dynamic choreography, which pushes the body to its utmost limits, connects with genuine impulses in dance and is supported across the genres. The main works by BATIK are SIDE B (2002), SHOKU (2004), Flowers Flow, Time Congeals (2004, reworked in 2009), Last Pie (2005), Pendanteve (2007), B…blue (2009), OTARUDORI (2012), Meeting-Melting (2014), and Mi vida con la ola (My Life with the Wave) in 2015. In addition to works created for members of the company, BATIK also worked with stage actors and spoken language for the performances of Chain and Arrow in 2009 and Ray of Light, Shards of Mirror in 2010.
BATIK frequently performs at overseas festivals including Dance Umbrella, the Venice Biennale, the Expo Zaragoza in Spain, and the Singapore International Festival of Arts.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-religion-of-birds

SPAC – Shizuoka Performing Arts Center

SPAC was founded in 1995 by the Shizuoka prefectural government and commenced its full-fledged activities in 1997 under the direction of SUZUKI Tadashi, its first General Artistic Director. As a pioneer of publicly funded performing-arts organizations in Japan, SPAC retains its own staff of actors, technical and production staff, who are based at its own venues and facilities. The mission of SPAC is not only to create original pieces, but also to invite progressive artistic companies and creators to Shizuoka and to develop human resources seeking expression through the performing arts. Since April 2007, when he was appointed as the General Artistic Director, MIYAGI Satoshi has led SPAC in a buoyant new phase of development and expansion.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/grimms-fairy-tale

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/grimms-fairy-tale-the-real-fiancee-spac

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/antigone

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/special-talk-viewpoint-of-asian-directors

WATANABE Hisashi

WATANABE Hisashi, dancer and circus artist, started juggling, handstand, and contortion through self-study at the age of 20. Well appreciated for his dance style incorporating his unique physicality and philosophy, he has performed in more than 15 countries. He also teaches handstand and stretching online, conveying the appeal of the body to a wide range of people. He is currently engaged in a project to increase the number of people doing handstands in Japan by 10,000.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ojami-hyon-series

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ojami-hyon-series-episode-4-ojami-born

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/ojami-hyon-series-episode-5-gravi-hyon

OKADA Toshiki

Born in Yokohama in 1973 and now living in Kumamoto, OKADA Toshiki is a playwright, novelist, and the founder of the theater company chelfitsch.
He is renowned in Japan and overseas for his distinctive methodology, which draws on the actors’ imaginations as it explores the relationship between speech and physical movement, and for his critical perceptions of contemporary society. In 2005, his play “Five Days in March” won the 49th Kishida Kunio Drama Award. Since making their overseas debut with the production in 2007, his theater company chelfitsch has performed in over 90 cities around the world. He has created many pieces with the company through international collaboration with the world’s leading festivals and theaters. His recent work has also included writing and directing repertory programs for European public theater companies, such as Münchner Kammerspiele in Germany.
In 2018, OKADA produced a piece in Thailand entitled “Pratthana - A Portrait of Possession”, an adaptation of a novel by Thai author Uthis Haemamool. It was performed in Bangkok in August 2018, Paris in December 2018, and in Tokyo from June to July 2019, and was subsequently awarded the 27th Yomiuri Theater Awards Selection Committee Special Prize in February 2020.
OKADA has recently also turned his hand to creating works that incorporate Noh in modern translation and Noh formats. In 2021, he won drama/scenario division of the 72nd Yomiuri Bungaku-sho ("Yomiuri Prize for Literature") and the 25th Tsuruya Nanboku Memorial Award for his play “Unfulfilled Ghost and Monster - ZAHA/TSURUGA”, which borrows the “dream vision” (mugen) Noh construct to tackle the themes of architect Zaha Hadid’s scrapped Olympic stadium design and the decommissioned fast-breeder nuclear reactor Monju. He has also pursued an increasingly diverse range of projects, such as his first foray into the direction of opera with “Yuzuru (Twilight Crane)” in 2021.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/five-days-in-march-re-creation-in-yokohama

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/work-in-progress-for-music-theatre-production

IWAI Hideto

Born in 1974. An actor/playwright/stage director, IWAI stayed at home as “Hikikomori” from age 16 to 20. He formed the theatrical company hi-bye in 2003, and in 2007 joined the producing department of Seinen-Dan. Many of his works are gritty but laughable comedies based on Iwai’s own personal experiences. Recently he collects stories from people in normal lives and made plays such as “A Certain Woman”, “The men” and “The Husbund and Wife”. IWAI has worked increasingly as a director, actor, novelist and scenario writer. He was awarded for Kuniko Mukoda Award in 2011 (NHKBS TV drama) and Kunio Kishida Award in 2012 (A Certain Woman). “Hikky Cancun Tornado” was performed in Seoul at the performing arts market PAMS in Oct. 2011. “Hikky Sotonidetemitano” was directed by Park Geunhyeong at DOOSAN ART CENTER and “The Hand” was directed by I Kipm in 2015.
Link: Performing Arts Network Japan “Artist Interview”
https://performingarts.jp/E/art_interview/1108/1.html
For more information please visit: http://hi-bye.net/english

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/wareware-no-moromoro

Dumb Type

Founded in 1984, Dumb Type is comprised of artists from diverse backgrounds—visual art, music, video, dance, design, computer programming and other fields—all contributing to a great variety of stage and installation productions over the years. They have maintained an open-ended creative style with no fixed director and a changing roster of members participating in each new production as part of their on-going exploration of ever new possibilities in artistic collaboration.
Their works has been presented in numerous festivals and exhibitions including Hong Kong Arts Festival, Barbican Centre (London), New National Theatre (Tokyo), Musée d'Art Contemporain de Lyon, Singapore Arts Festival, Melbourne International Arts Festival, solo exhibition at Centre Pompidou-Metz (France) in 2018, Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2019-20, and Haus der Kunst (Munich) in 2022, among others. "Japan Pavilion Exhibition in Tokyo – From the 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia" is presented at the Artizon Museum in 2023.

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS titles:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/dumbtype2020

https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/stage/audio-visual-live-2022-remix

ICHIHARA Satoko

Playwright, director and novelist. Born 1988 in Osaka, raised in Fukuoka, Japan. She studied theater at J.F. Oberlin University. ICHIHARA Satoko has led the theater company Q since 2011.She writes and directs the plays that deal with human behavior, the physiology of the body, and the unease surrounding these themes, using her unique sense of language and physical sensitivity. In 2011, she received the Aichi Arts Foundation Drama Award with the play “Insects”. In 2017, she was nominated for the finalist of 61st Kishida Kunio Drama Award for “Favonia’s Fruitless Fable”. In 2019, she published her first collection of stories, Mamito no tenshi (Mamito’s Angel). Her latest work, The Bacchae−Holstein Milk Cows, based on a Greek tragedy, was premiered at Aichi Triennale 2019 and won the 64st Kishida Kunio Drama Award . She is a Junior Fellow of The Saison Foundation(2020-2021).
For more information please visit: http://qqq-qqq-qqq.com/

STAGE BEYOND BORDERS title:
https://stagebb.jpf.go.jp/en/stage/the-question-of-faeries