Ahi Karunaharan is a multidisciplinary artist of Srilankan Tamil descent working across stage and screen in Aotearoa. A graduate of Victoria University of Wellington (2003) and Toi Whakaari: New Zealand Drama School (2007), he has worked internationally with acclaimed companies such as Tara Arts and Belvoir St Theatre and has presented critically acclaimed works at the Auckland, Sydney, and Adelaide Arts Festivals. He is the founder and artistic director of Agaram Productions, which presented trailblazing theatre works for Auckland Theatre Company, Auckland Arts Festival, Silo Theatre, and Kia Mau Festival. He is the founder of various development initiatives, including The South Asian Writers Festival (Now Known as the South and East Asian Writers Festival), First World Problems for new talent development, and Grassroots Creative workshops for migrant communities.
His work interrogates memory, nostalgia, and the inheritance of loss from a diaspora lens. Ahi’s artistic practice is driven by the need to amplify voices and communities to centralise the experiences that often remain in the periphery.
From intimate encounters to large-scale epics, pioneering works for the South Asian community, writing highlights include My Heart Goes Thadak Thadak, The Mourning After, Tea, Light Vs Dark, Anchorite, A Mixtape for Maladies, and Directing highlights The First Time Asian Sitcom, Basmati Bitch. Boom Shankar, Rudali, A Fine Balance, Shoulda Woulda Coulda, Swabhoomi: Borrowed Earth, Northern Glow, Mumbai Monologues.
The winner of the Bruce Mason Award (2018), recognising his work as an outstanding New Zealand playwright. The recipient of an Arts Foundation Laureate Award (2020).

Kamisato is a playwright and director, born in Peru in 1982 and raised in Kanagawa. He is not based in a single location, instead shifting his creative base depending on commissions, production contexts, and theatre environments that are available at that time. Working primarily around the themes of migration, mobility, and tourism, he creates works inspired by stories and experiences he gathers through his own travels across Japan and around the world. His productions have been invited to numerous theatre festivals both in Japan and internationally. His plays have been staged or published in countries including South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
In 2006, he won first prize in the TOGA Directors Competition for his staging of Desire Caught by the Tail by Pablo Picasso. He received the 62nd Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 2018 for The Story of Descending the Long Slopes of Valparaíso, which premiered at Kyoto Experiment in 2017. From October 2016, he spent one year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as a fellow of the overseas training program supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan.

Ueda is a playwright and director who graduated in French language and literature from Kyoto University. After several years of working for a commercial enterprise, she joined the directing department of the Takarazuka Revue in 2006, and left in 2022. In 2023, she directed a National Opera Coproduction opera production Pagliacci / Cavalleria Rusticana, performed at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and Aichi Prefectural Art Theater. Between 2023 and 2024, she was trained in France, participating in the overseas training program supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs of Japan. In 2024, she set up Projectumï, her own production and creation structure. In January 2025, she organized the first performance of Banquet for a Void, then in May the same year, she presented Breathing Training Pool – By the Moat of the Imperial Palace as part of Hibiya Art Park 2025, followed by Hamlet which she directed as part of SPAC Autumn Season 2025-2026. She has been a Saison Fellow II since 2024.

projectumï
Ueda’s artistic structure projectumï, through performance-making that starts from the body and transcends across texts, music and movement, explores new forms of experiencing artworks beyond the traditional stage/audience hierarchy. In the course of this exploration, spectators may shift from passive viewers into improvised characters or unexpected performers within the work itself, allowing them to perceive the world differently.
In 2025, she established an association in Montreuil, France, with the same name projectumï. She is now conducting her artistic activities both in Japan and in France.