Born in Amadora, Portugal, in 1977, Rodrigues is an actor, director, playwright, producer and since 2022 the Director of the Festival d’Avignon, in France. In 1997, when he was still a drama school student, he started to work with the Belgian company tg STAN as an actor. The freedom and the absence of hierarchy he found there would significantly influence his future works. In 2003, he co-founded with Magda Bizarro the theater company Mundo Perfeito. From 2015 to 2021, he was the artistic Director of the National Theatre Dona Maria II in Lisbon. In 2019 he was distinguished by the French Republique with the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters), and during the same year, he received the Prémio Pessoa, the most prestigious award for arts and science in Portugal. He has always looked at the theater as a human assembly: a place where people meet to confront their thoughts and share their time. Either mixing true stories and fiction, rewriting classics or adapting novels, his works are deeply rooted in the idea of writing for and with the actors and searching for a poetical transformation of reality through theatrical tools.
At Kyoto Experiment 2025, Dans la mesure de l’impossible, a play Rodrigues created through an extensive dialogue with the members of the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, was presented as a drama reading.

Alice Ripoll is a Brazilian choreographer and director acclaimed for her work at the intersection of contemporary dance and urban dance styles from Brazil. Through research, the work opens space for the dancers to transform the experiences and memories that live in each one, into images. Currently she’s directing two groups. Cia. REC and Cia. SUAVE. Her shows have been performed at several festivals in Brazil, such as Panorama Festival, Bienal SESC de Dança, MIT; and abroad: Festival Dias da Dança (Porto), HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Berlin), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Festival de La Cité Lausanne, Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels), Wiener Festwochen, Festival TransAmériques (Montreal), Brooklyn Academy of Music (New York).

Minamino is a playwright, director and costume designer based in Kyoto. Considering the stage as a “place where anyone can stand on should the need arise”, she explores different ways of making and watching the works at various places and with different people. “Through my stage works, I am getting my own back on things I regret,” she says. “By creating my work, I’m revenging/revising. I want to get payback onstage for the things that I want to redo or rethink in my life, not through violence, but by using the power of my work.” Based on this belief, she resolutely re-examines pressing personal issues and presents works that elevate the person’s life into a social response.
Selected and performed in ROHM Theatre Kyoto + Kyoto Art Center KIPPU Under 35 Creative Support Program 2019. Received the best playwright prize in the 15th Sengawa Theater Drama Competition. Selected as a 2026 Saison Fellow I by the Saison Foundation.

Founded in January 2018 by former company members of Ishinha, kondaba is now run by Nanako Ishihara and Hitoshi Kaneko. With “place” and “play” as the themes of creation, kondaba starts making works by finding a place to perform in the city and “play” with that place. “Play” refers to deciphering the regularity and features of that place from the physical structures, such as pillars, walls and ceiling, as well as from the texture, and exploring the relation between the body and the place. kondaba’s works are created based on the physicality gained through the play, research conducted on time accumulated within that place, and interviews with local residents. kondaba has performed at Hosono Building, former Ikuno Regional Wholesale Market, former Ouchi Carpentry Shop, and Creative Center OSAKA (former Namura Shipbuilding Osaka site). Received the award for outstanding works in the 4th Kansai Theater Award for the performance of The Master Builder, written by Henrik Ibsen and directed by kondaba.