Creating opportunities for 'inclusive dance' with Stopgap Dance Company
"I believe people with almost any kind of physique can do contemporary dance. Yet though there are many courses for able-bodied people, there is almost nothing for people with disabilities," says Sho Shibata, executive producer of U.K.-based Stopgap Dance Company. Stopgap's debut Japan tour with ...
Hikaru Uzawa blends old and new to add vitality to the world of noh
Hikaru Uzawa is a noh performer who marries her work within the traditional confines of the art form with performing in contemporary pieces internationally, bringing freshness to the traditional world of noh. Uzawa, 39, comes from a long line of noh performers. Her mother, Hisa ...
Dancer aims to reinvent Minamata, long known for disease caused by pollution, into a city of samba
Minamata in Kumamoto Prefecture has long been known mainly for a deadly industrial pollution debacle that occurred decades ago, but a dancing teacher hopes he can help reinvent it into the city of samba. Masashi Ito, who prefers to go by his first name, has ...
While ballet reigned supreme, a range of dance delighted fans in 2018
For a dance-loving country like Japan, every year brings delight in the variety of performances on offer, but the depth and breadth of 2018 on stage has been particularly grand for fans across a wide range of genres and movements. In January, the New National ...
With popularity growing in Japan, pole dancing sheds seedy image to climb to new heights
Sixty-three-year-old Kiyoshi Ikehara mops his bald head with a towel, wipes his hands and grips the vertical pole. With a sharp intake of breath he hauls himself up, grunting and straining as he climbs to the top. Once there he stops, clamps his thighs shut ...
Prize-winning Fukuoka dance team puts Kurume on YouTube radar
The Kurume Municipal Government in Fukuoka Prefecture has released a YouTube video featuring Kyushudanji Shinsengumi, a local boys' dance group that won first place at World of Dance 2015 in Los Angeles, to promote the city. The video, which shows the group in action at ...
In Yokohama, they'll be dancing in the streets
Summer is a time for dancing. Across the country there are countless local matsuri (festivals) in which a regionally specific odori (dance) is the main attraction and, of course, there are the many outdoor music festivals that allow people to let loose and move. The ...
The mind games of choreographer Philippe Decoufle
Choreographer Philippe Decoufle describes his new circus-inspired show, "Nouvelles Pieces Courtes" ("New Short Pieces"), as a "sort of visual and physical mind game." That's not surprising as the 56-year-old Frenchman has fused dance with dizzying aerial choreography, sly acrobatics and the clever use of video ...
Force and fragility meet and merge in 'Dunas'
There are mutual squeals of delight when Belgian dance artist Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Spanish flamenco dancer Maria Pages are reunited after "far too long" at a Tokyo rehearsal studio. Pages, 54, has flown in from Madrid to promote the pair's 2009 work "Dunas" ("Dunes"), ...
Dairakudakan's 'unearthly' butoh meets a tortured Russian tale
Following a January press conference in which the New National Theatre, Tokyo, announced that Dairakudakan, one of the world's leading butoh companies, would be staging two performances of "Tsumi to Batsu" ("Crime and Punishment") in March, troupe founder Akaji Maro delivered a triumphant statement. "Having ...
Japan's famed Takarazuka Revue adds a touch of Taiwan for next tour there
The all-women Takarazuka Revue musical troupe says its Star Troupe will unveil a production inspired by a Taiwanese puppet show during its third tour of the island nation later this year. Tomotsugu Ogawa, president of the Takarazuka Revue Company, told a news conference Friday in ...
Jerome Bel and his amateurs test the limits of contemporary dance in Saitama show
Controversial French choreographer lets the locals loose in 'Gala.'
