Lecturer

Akihiko Senda

Theatre Critic

Born in Tokyo in 1940, Senda graduated from the University of Tokyo, majoring in western literature. One of Japan’s best-known theatre critics, his many publications include “The Voyage of Contemporary Japanese Theatre”.

“Festival Fukushima!@Ikebukuro Nishiguchi Park”

This unique festive event sees Ikebukuro come to life with a colorful giant furoshiki cloth on the ground, big band music and original Bon dancing. Led by musicians Michiro Endo and Otomo Yoshihide, and poet Ryoichi Wago, PROJECT FUKUSHIMA! was set up following the 2011 Tohoku tsunami to tell the world about the energy of Fukushima. Their signature large festival event now comes to Ikebukuro Nishiguchi Park for the opening weekend of F/T14. The festival weekend is participatory. Anyone is able to join in the Ikebukuro Nishiguchi Orchestra created especially for the event and the Bon dance workshops. Of course, it’s also fine just to turn up and watch the music and dancing!

Artist

George Ibrahim

Founder and Artistic Director, Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinematheque

Born in 1945. He was an actor before studying theatre at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and going on to work as a playwright and director. His major work includes “Ramzi Abu Al-Majd”, which won the Best Actor Award at the Carthage International Theatre Festival 1995, and “Immigrant”, which won prizes for best director and costume design at the Carthage International Theatre Festival in 1999. http://www.alkasaba.org/english

Artist

Mikuni Yanaihara

Choreographer, Director, Playwright

A choreographer working around the globe, Yanaihara formed her unit Nibroll in 1997. Nibroll has been invited to the Oregon Dance Festival, the San Francisco Butoh Festival, Fusion Festival in Berlin, Laokoon Summer Festival in Hamburg, and many other overseas festivals. It has also performed at The Kitchen in New York. She won the Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 2012 for her playwriting, which she has presented under the name Mikuni Yanaihara Project since 2005. Under the name off-Nibroll she also creates video artwork that has been shown at many exhibitions, such as “Roppongi Crossing” at Mori Art Museum. She choreographed the anime feature film “Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror” in 2009. She has won many awards for her choreography, including the Japan Dance Forum Award, NHK Prize and more. Her accolades include the Japan Dance Forum Award and the Yokohama City Arts Award. She also teaches at Kinki University.

Artist

Mikuni Yanaihara

Choreographer, Director, Playwright

A choreographer working around the globe, Yanaihara formed her unit Nibroll in 1997. Nibroll has been invited to the Oregon Dance Festival, the San Francisco Butoh Festival, Fusion Festival in Berlin, Laokoon Summer Festival in Hamburg, and many other overseas festivals. It has also performed at The Kitchen in New York. She won the Kishida Kunio Drama Award in 2012 for her playwriting, which she has presented under the name Mikuni Yanaihara Project since 2005. Under the name off-Nibroll she also creates video artwork that has been shown at many exhibitions, such as “Roppongi Crossing” at Mori Art Museum. She choreographed the anime feature film “Oblivion Island: Haruka and the Magic Mirror” in 2009. She has won many awards for her choreography, including the Japan Dance Forum Award, NHK Prize and more. Her accolades include the Japan Dance Forum Award and the Yokohama City Arts Award. She also teaches at Kinki University.

Guest Speaker

Hyunsuk Seo

Director, Performing Arts Researcher

Born in 1965. Lecturer at Yonsei University. He has created many site-specific performances, which have been shown at Festival Bo:m, the Nam Jun Paik Center and more. His major works include “FAT SHOW”, “Heterotopia”, “The Divine Prostitution of the Soul”, and “Desire Paths”. He participated in Critics in Residence at F/T11 and was one of the jury for the F/T Award at 2012’s Festival/Tokyo Emerging Artists Program. In 2013 he created a work for Festival Bo:m and staged a special Japanese-Korean co-production at the Steep Slope Studio.

Guest Speakers

Reiko Yuyama

Essayist; Lecturer, Nihon University College of Art

A prolific columnist for many kinds of women’s fashion magazines and a regular television broadcaster for NHK and Tokyo MX. She writes about a range of subjects, including film, music, food and fashion. Her many publications include “Onna hitori sushi” (Sushi for the Woman Dining Alone), “Club Culture!”, “Joso suru onna” (Women Dressed as Women) and “Yosoji goe!” (Crossing the Forty-Year Mark).

Miho Watanabe

Dramaturge for F/T14′s “The Rite of Spring”

Born in 1979, she completed her doctoral studies at Tokyo University of the Arts, gaining a Ph.D. in Japanese avant-garde music. She previously taught at the Department of Musical Creativity and the Environment, Tokyo University of the Arts, and currently is a part-time lecturer at Waseda University. She also writes and edits music magazines and publications, as well as producing and directing a radio show about classical music and jazz.

Director

Toshikuni Doi

Freelance journalist

Born in 1953 in Saga Prefecture. Doi first became involved with the Palestine-Israel problem in 1985. He has been filming in Palestine and Israel for 17 years, and, working with the Palestinian Documentary Society, completed the four-part “Unheard Voices: Palestinians, Israelis, and the Occupation” in 2009.

Guest Speakers

Katsumi Tamura

Executive Director, Graduate University for Advanced Studies; Professor Emeritus, National Museum of Ethnology

He completed his post-graduate studies at the University of Tokyo and has taught at Kagoshima University, Kanazawa University and the National Museum of Ethnology. As a cultural anthropologist he has specialized in Burma (Myanmar) and the Southeast Asian region.

Andrew Maerkle

Art Writer, Researcher

Born in 1981 and based in Tokyo. He graduated from Columbia University’s Comparative Literature and Society Program. He is currently Deputy Editor of the Japanese-English online publication ART iT, International Edition, and served as Deputy Editor of ArtAsiaPacific magazine in New York from 2006 to 2008. He has contributed to numerous international periodicals including Artforum and frieze. He also teaches at Tokyo Zokei University and AIT. In February 2014 he visited Myanmar with the artist Koki Tanaka under the auspices of the Japan Foundation to survey the local contemporary art scene.

Artist

Seigo Hatasawa

Playwright, Director, Leader of Watanabe Genshiro Shoten

Born in Akita Prefecture in 1964 and works in Aomori City. “Farewell to Nuclear Robot Mutsu” was nominated for the 57th Kishida Kunio Drama Award. As well as his work with Watanabe Genshiro Shoten, he also writes for other companies, and has won many awards for his radio drama. He teaches theatre at high school and his work with Aomori Prefectural Aomori Chuo High School and Aomori Prefectural Hirosaki Chuo High School students have competed in the National High School Theatre Contest eight times, winning the top prize on three occasions and the prize for excellence a further four times.

Artist

©Kyungmin Na

Kyungsung Lee

Director, Leader of Creative VaQi

Born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1983. He studied directing at Seoul’s Chung-Ang University before undertaking postgraduate studies at Central School of Speech and Drama in London. He formed Creative VaQi in 2007 and works as its leader and director. Past work includes “The Moving Exhibition” (200), “The Dream of Sancho” (2010) (which took part in the Edinburgh Festival), “The History of Gangnam” (2011), and the “Theatre Practice” series (2013-2014), the most recent of which was performed in Seoul. He won a prize at the Chuncheon International Mime Festival in 2009 and in the same year he also became the youngest winner of the important Korea New Conception Theatre Award for “Let us move your sofa”.

Artist

Yukio Ninagawa

Director, Artistic Director of Saitama Arts Theater

Born in Saitama in 1935, Yukio Ninagawa made his directing debut in 1969. In 1974 he entered the commercial theatre world with a staging of “Romeo and Juliet”. Since then he has produced a succession of major theatrical hits, establishing himself as one of the most renowned Japanese directors. He has been Artistic Director of Saitama Arts Theater since 2006, where he established Saitama Gold Theater. Since 2009 he has also been working with younger performers through Saitama Next Theatre. Recent productions include a theatre adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel “Never Let Me Go”, “Kafka on the Shore” based on Haruki Murakami’s novel, and a play written by Tomohiro Maekawa. He has received honorary doctorates from Edinburgh University in 1992 and Plymouth University in 2009, a CBE in 2002, the Order of Culture in 2010, and the Grand Prize and Best Directing Award at the 20th Yomiuri Theatre Awards.

Artist

Seigo Hatasawa

Playwright, Director, Leader of Watanabe Genshiro Shoten

Born in Akita Prefecture in 1964 and works in Aomori City. “Farewell to Nuclear Robot Mutsu” was nominated for the 57th Kishida Kunio Drama Award. As well as his work with Watanabe Genshiro Shoten, he also writes for other companies, and has won many awards for his radio drama. He teaches theatre at high school and his work with Aomori Prefectural Aomori Chuo High School and Aomori Prefectural Hirosaki Chuo High School students have competed in the National High School Theatre Contest eight times, winning the top prize on three occasions and the prize for excellence a further four times.

Artist

©Zhou Jing

Chong Wang

Playwright, Director, Leader of Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental

Born in 1982 in Beijing. After studying in Beijing, he completed his master’s degree in theatre at the University of Hawaii. He formed Théâtre du Rêve Expérimental in 2008. Its multi-media performance and documentary theatre has made it a leader of experimental theatre in China. He has toured internationally, including in Asia and Europe. He took part in the Asian Directors’ Festival in Toga (Japan) in 2012 and won the F/T Award for “The Warfare of Landmine 2.0”, which was part of the F/T13 Emerging Artists Program. Wang is also a prolific translator of plays, books and criticism.

Panelists

Chinatsu Kudo

Playwright, Director, Dramaturge for Watanabe Genshiro Shoten

A playwright and director, Kudo is the head of Usagi-an and is also attached to Seinendan’s directors department. She completed post-graduate studies in theatre at New York University and after a time at an ad agency she began to specialize in dramaturgy. She returned to Japan and has been working in Japanese theatre since 2003. Her plays include “Paamaya-san” and “Mayonaka no taiyo”.

Kako Kishimoto

Director, Translator, Dramaturge for “Invisible Neighbors (inspired by ‘8’)”

Kako Kishimoto is the director and founder of the Tokyo-based multilingual performance company utsubo, which she founded in 2009. She has worked as a translator and dramaturge at Festival/Tokyo 2010 and the World Theatre Festival under Mt. Fuji 2012, which was held at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center. She holds a B.A. from Waseda University and a M.A. from the University of Tokyo. She is now a MFA candidate at Columbia University, with a concentration in dramaturgy, and a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Tokyo. She received the first prize at Geisou Connect Vol.7, the highly acclaimed young directors festival in Osaka.

Guest Speakers

Sachio Ichimura

Representative, Festival/Tokyo Directors Committee

Born in 1949. He has served as an administrator for Sankai Juku, Toyota Art Management Lecture Director, Park Tower Art Program Advisor, President of Theater TV, Administrative Director of Tokyo International Festival of Performing Arts, and Director of Tokyo International Arts Festival. His long career has seen him work in Japan and overseas in performing arts programming and production, as well as operating cultural facilities, arts management, projects connecting corporations with culture, and NPO research. He is currently Chairman of NPO Arts Network Japan, as well as an associate professor in the Department of Musical Creativity and the Environment at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Masao Katayama

Managing Director, Saison Foundation

Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1958. After a career at Seibu Department Store he joined the Saison Foundation in 1989 and has been the Managing Director since 2003. He was a research fellow at John Hopkins University from 1994 to 1995, researching subsidiary programs. As well as his role at the Saison Foundation, he is also a lecturer at the Graduate School of Social Design Studies at Rikkyo University, alongside roles in many other organizations such as the Japan Association of Charitable Organizations (JACO), the Japan Foundation Center (JFC), the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts (Mecenat), Arts Council Tokyo, the Civil Society Initiative Fund, among others. He has co-written several books about non-profits and corporate sponsorship.