Ms. Aasako Hirokawa
The chairperson of NPO Theatre Accessibility Network (TA-net). Hirokawa joined in the Japanese Theater of the Deaf in 1994. She appointed as a member of the 29th edition of the Duskin Disability Leadership Program and studied at the Graeae Theatre Company in London about the disability theatre activity between Sep. 2009-Sep.2010. Then she was inspired by the British theatre support system for the disability, and established the theatre support group, TA-net with her colleagues in Japan in Dec. 2012. She also organized her own company HIROKAWA-project in Mar.2013. She received the new face award of Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts in 2015. The TA-net received the YOMIURI Welfare Cultural Award in Dec.2016.
*Theatre Accessibility network (TA-net)
TA-net is a non-for-profit organisation established in 2012 by a group of deaf people, aiming to support, as well as to give a voice to, every deaf and disabled audience member who wishes to enjoy the performing arts, in Japan.
Mr. Hidenaga Otori (Theatre Critic)
Born in 1948. Otori specializes in Russian arts and philosophy. He has held positions as member of the Global Advisory Committee at the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, U.S).; artistic director of the Laokoon International Theatre Festival (Kampnagel, Hamburg) ; vice-president of Kyoto Performing Arts Center, Kyoto University of Arts and Design (Japan). Otori also worked as a chief editor of numerous theater magazines, including Theater Arts and Performing Arts. He recently engages in an experimental theatre lecture series “Theatre Theory of the Apes for Provocation and Barinwashing by Hidenaga Otori” since 2015.
Mr. Kiichi Kaiko (Art Director, Architect)
Born in 1970 in Miyagi prefecture. Kaiko graduated at BA of Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Toyohashi University of Technology. He traveled around Asia and Europa to study the folk houses and buildings then opened the S.E.A design and build office. Alongside, he started working for theatre design, illustration and art works at the local community hall in Miyagi. Later on he co-organized the Art YATAI project (2008) and formed the general incorporated association, *TAIWA KOBO (2011). Recently he also engages in filming, recording and editing the archive of his local community. He continues developing and creating the place for the dialogue to connect people and lands.
*Taiwa Kobo (Places and Opportunities for Dialogue and Expression)
Taiwa kobo has a purpose to regain the lost "Places and Opportunities for Dialogue and Expression" to people affected by the disastrous damages from the Great Earthquake in 2011, the 10 members(artists, architects and editors) gathered in Onagawa from all over the country after the earthquake.
Mr. Naoya Fujita (Literary Critic)
Part-time Lecturer at the Nishogakusya University and Wako University. Born in 1983 in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Doctor of Philosophy (2014, Tokyo Institute of Technology). Fujita published “CHIIKI ART - Aesthetics/System/Japan” (Horinouchi Publishing) in 2016. His other books are “Existence in Fiction-Yasutaka Tutsui and ‘new dimension of life’”, the conversation book with Kiyoshi Kasai “The Ruin of Culture” (Kyobunsha), ”floating view: Art in Suburb” (topofil), “Future of 3.11: Japan/SF/Imagination” (Sakuhinsha), and ”Film of +Zero Generation: Real, Fake, Gatchi, Cosplay” (Kawade Shobo Shinsha). He recently published “Theory of Shin Godzilla” in Dec. 2016.
Mr. Shintaro Fujii
Shintaro Fujii is a professor in theatre studies and currently the chief of the Department of Theatre and Film Studies at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. He specialises in contemporary performing arts, with a focus on francophone countries (France, Belgium and Canada) and Japan. He works on dramaturgy of the works of such prominent artists as Romeo Castellucci, Alain Platel, Robert Lepage and Dumb Type, as well as on cultural policies concerning performing arts. He has been the co-editor of Creative Force in the Postdramatic Age, Hakusuisha, 2014 (an anthology of interviews with artists such as Romeo Castellucci, Gisèle Vienne, Rimini Protokoll...); Arts and Their Environment, Ronsosha, 2012 (an anthology of essays on national and international cultural policies); Théâtre/Public, no 198, “Scènes françaises, scènes japonaises : allers-retours”, 2010 (a special issue of a French theatre review on exchange in theatre between Japan and France); and Keywords in Theatre Studies, Pelicansha, 2007. In 2013, he was the initiator and director of a pilot project “Training Programme in Dramaturgy” at Waseda University, the first attempt of the kind in Japan, with the funding from the Japanese Agency for Cultural Affairs. He also translates plays, mostly from French into Japanese, among which Incendies (Scorched) by Wajdi Mouawad, for which he received in 2015 the prestigious Odashima Yushi Award for Drama Translation.
Mr. Takao Kawaguchi (Dancer, Performer)
After joining the Japanese multimedia performance collective Dumb Type from 1996 to 2008, Takao Kawaguchi since 2000 has been exploring the fertile field of live performance in the intersection of theater, dance, visual image and fine arts, mainly through solo works and collaborations with artists of different disciplines. From 2008 he started the solo performance series a perfect life, the 6th work of which, “from Okinawa to Tokyo”, was presented at the 5th Yesbisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, 2013). More recent works include: About Kazuo Ohno - Reliving the Butoh Diva’s Masterpieces (Kazuo Ohno Festival 2013, currently touring around the world ); and TOUCH OF THE OTHER (ONE National Gay and Lesbian Archives in Los Angeles IN 2015, and Spiral Hall in Tokyo in 2016).
*alphabetic order