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First Artist Names Announced!
2023.6.12
Every Autumn we invite radical and experimental artists from Japan and overseas to stage works of performing arts we believe should be experienced now. We are pleased to reveal five artist names from our 2023 lineup.
☞ Artists
Toshiki Okada / chelfitsch
Back to Back Theatre
Ayaka Nakama
Dana Michel
Mariano Pensotti
Kyoto Experiment: Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival 2023
Dates ☞ September 30th (Sat) – October 22nd (Sun) 2023 [23 days]
Venues ☞ ROHM Theatre Kyoto, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto Art Theater Shunjuza, THEATRE E9 KYOTO and other locations
☞ Artist Profiles
Toshiki Okada / chelfitsch (Tokyo)
chelfitsch is a theater company founded in 1997 by Toshiki Okada, who writes and directs all of its productions. The company made its international debut in 2007 with Five Days in March at Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Belgium) and has since presented its works in over ninety cities across Asia, Europe and North America. Many of the company’s works have also been commissioned or co-produced by the world’s leading performing arts festivals and theaters including Festival d’Automne à Paris (France) and Wiener Festwochen (Austria)
What will they present? ☞
chelfitsch will take on the challenge of creating work in Japanese in collaboration with performers whose mother tongue is not Japanese. The new work is titled The Window of Spaceship ‘In-Between’ and will be presented at ROHM Theater Kyoto from September 30th to October 3rd.
Back to Back Theatre (Geelong, Australia)
©Kira Kynd
Active for over thirty years, Back to Back Theatre is an Australian theater company centered around actors with intellectual disabilities. The company creates new forms of contemporary performance imagined from the minds and experiences of a unique ensemble of actors with a disability. Their works often shine a sharp light on the darker corners of society and are highly acclaimed worldwide. In addition to its professional practice, the company collaborates with communities around the world with a focus on artistic excellence and elevated social inclusion for people with disabilities.
What will they present? ☞
The company will present The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes which has been performed around the world to high acclaim since its premiere in 2019. This also marks the first time their work is introduced in the Kansai region.
Ayaka Nakama (Kobe)
©Bea Borgers
Nakama is a dancer. After training at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance (London) she took part as a scholarship student in a dance study program in Kobe organized by the Agency for Cultural Affairs and NPO Dance Box. While committed to the way the body is choreographed by someone or something, she pursues a phenomenon that she believes can only be called dance. In recent years she has been actively focused on the creation of her own works. She is also attracting attention internationally and her work Freeway Dance has been presented at Kunstenfestivaldesarts (2021) and Centre Pompidou (2021). In 2021, a Kyoto version of Freeway Dance was presented at Kyoto Experiment 2021 Spring. This will mark the second time her work is presented at the festival.
Dana Michel (Montreal, Canada)
©Richmond Lam
Michel is a choreographer and live artist based in Canada. Her works interact with the expanded fields of improvisation, hip-hop, dub, comedy, cinematography, sculpture, and social commentary to create a centrifuge of experience. In 2014 Michel was highlighted among the most notable female choreographers of the year by the New York Times. In 2017, she was awarded the Silver Lion for Innovation in Dance at the Venice Biennale. At this year‛s festival Michel will present a new work that was developed during a residency in Kinosaki and Kyoto in 2022. Michel has been invited to numerous festivals and theaters around the world and has garnered attention for her works that disrupt social conventions through her unique physical language. This is the choreographer‛s long-awaited first performance in Japan.
Mariano Pensotti (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
©Bea Borgers
Pensotti is an author and director based in Argentina. He studied visual arts and theater. He creates theater works specifically intended for the theater as well as site-specific performance works. His works are highly acclaimed for their use of large-scale sets and intricately crafted structures of dialogue, channeling theatrical structures into a kind of wondrous fiction. Pensotti is one of the world’s most renowned theater directors and has presented his work in over thirty cities around the world. This is the first full-scale introduction in Japan of one of Pensotti‛s works for the theater.