■Name：Craneo Inc.
■Project name：Terra Co. Dance Research Program
Creation Grant [Single Year] fiscal year 2022
A project aimed at fostering a mindset among choreographers and dancers which allows them to take the initiative and engage in high-quality creative activities.
Participants were selected through an open call, and lectures, discussions, mentoring, etc. was conducted by instructors (Hokuto Kodama, Yuma Ochi, Ayako Takahashi, and Shintaro Hirahara ). Concurrent to these activities, study sessions were held twelve times throughout the year to provide feedback on study topics set by the participants. After an interim presentation, participants gave a final research presentation in a variety of formats, including reports, performance, and video.

Name：General incorporated foundation RIKKOUKAI
Project name：Nextream21　A meeting to raise a roar to name dance more freely than ever before
Creation Grant [Long Term] fiscal year 2023 – 2025 (3 years)
A three-year creation program project implemented together with a team of directors comprising Yuya Tsukahara from contact Gonzo, photographer Lieko Shiga, and artist yang02. Members of the public were invited to come up with a “dream plan” for a possible dance performance at Rikkoukai Hall. Six groups of participants will be selected in the first year, and three groups in the second year. These will be whittled down to one group in the third year, which will create and perform a dance work.

■Name：“Shihai”Editorial Department
■Project name：Second phase of “Shihai,” a project for the forming of a platform to transmit discourse surrounding performing arts.
Creation Grant [Single Year] fiscal year 2023, 2024
“Shihai”is a theater review journal launched in 2017 with critic and dramaturg Kenta Yamazaki as its editor-in-chief. This project launched in 2023 has seen the establishment of an online platform to carry pre- and post-performance interviews with stage artists as well as performance reviews, providing a forum for young critics as well as writers in different fields. Featuring talks and roundtables, the aim is to employ diverse perspectives to revitalize discourse surrounding performing arts such as theater, dance, and performance.

18:45　Venue opens
19:00　start

【Part 1】
・Introduction
・Introduction to grant project activities (project outcomes and challenges)

■ CRANEO Inc
“Terra Co. Dance Research Program”
■General incorporated foundation RIKKOUKAI
“Nextream21　A meeting to raise a roar to name dance more freely than ever before”
■“Shihai”Editorial Department
Second Term of the project “Shihai” for forming a platform to disseminate discourse surrounding the performing arts.

Break

【Part2】
・Talk session with speakers featuring facilitator Naoto Moriyama
・Q&A and exchange of opinion with participants

【Part3】
・Social event with speakers and participants

21:00　Close

【Grant recipient】

Craneo Inc.
CRANEO was founded in 2020 with Shintaro Hirahara as its Representative Director to manage dance company OrganWorks. With the aim of developing Organworks into a dance company that connects with society through cutting-edge physical expression, CRANEO engages in open-to-the-public initiatives such as the planning, operation and choreographing of stage productions, open rehearsals for students, choreographer training courses, and workshops created together with people with disabilities. The company also manages the rights to creative works by Shintaro Hirahara and OrganWorks.。
https://theorganworks.com/about/

©Hajime Kato
Shintaro Hirahara
Born in Hokkaido in 1981. After a career in classical ballet and HIPHOP, Hirahara worked as a dancer and choreographer. As well as his involvement in the staging of productions by Phillip Breen, Yoshie Inaba etc., he also proactively interacts with artists in other fields, such as in his collaborations with Chiharu Shiota in the field of visual art, and with Ryoff Karma, RAMZA and others in the field of music. Hirahara won both the Next Generation Choreographer Award and Audience Award at the 2016 Toyota Choreography Award, as well as the Japan Dance Forum Award in 2017. Hirahara was Director of Choreography for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2022, he took charge of the choreography for a production of “Einstein on the Beach.”

©Hajime Kato
Taeko Machida
Taeko Machida learnt classical ballet from a young age. She graduated from Japan Women’s College of Physical Education where she majored in Dance Studies. She studied contemporary dance under Naoya Aoki. Machida has appeared in numerous works by Japanese and overseas choreographers including Yukio Suzuki and Carmen Werner. She joined OrganWorks in 2013. As well as her work as a dancer, Machida has been involved in multifarious dance-related projects, including planning and production for the dance training program Terra Co., and planning and production for “Autumn Productions,”an organization she launched in 2019 with choreographer/dancer Akiyoshi Nita.

General incorporated foundation RIKKOUKAI
To ensure the legacy of the free-spirited and open-minded history and culture of the Minamishinagawa-juku along the old Tokaido route, General incorporated foundation RIKKOUKAI runs libraries and theaters as public facilities rooted in community, contributing to the local community with the aim of educating, training, fostering and supporting young people. In 1927, RIKKOUKAI was approved as a foundation, going on to build the Rikkoukai Sogo Building, which incorporates the Shinagawa City Library and Rokkoukai Hall. The foundation organized The Children’s Festival from 2000 to 2022, and has also held the Nextream21 event from 2002 through to the present.
https://www.rikkoukai.com

©Lieko Shiga
Yuya Tsukahara
After graduating from Kwansei Gakuin University’s School of Humanities with a masters degree specializing in aesthetics, Tsukahara worked at NPO DANCE BOX before launching contact Gonzo in 2006, a performance collective with which he has showcased works in Japan and overseas. He was a Saison Foundation fellow artist from 2011 through 2017. In 2020 he won the Yomiuri Theater Awards’ Best Staff Award for scenography and choreography of the theater piece“Prathana.”In 2021, contact Gonzo garnered the Kyoto City New Artist Award.

Junko Hanamitsu
Junko Hanamitsu has planned and produced numerous genre-transcending and experimental performing arts productions ranging from contemporary arts such as theater, dance, and contemporary music to traditional Japanese performing arts. She has also been involved in many art-related exchanges with countries outside Japan. She organizes overseas productions for Japanese artists as well as invitational performances in Japan of overseas productions. She has produced and presented numerous works by dancers and choreographers including Dumb Type, Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, and Setsuko Yamada both in Japan and abroad.

“Shihai”Editorial Department
In 2017 Kenta Yamazaki launched the solo project “Shihai,” a new style theater review journal featuring reviews of plays and performances. A total of 4 editions were published through 2018. “Shihai” was rebooted in November 2023. In addition to paper publication of the journal, Yamazaki has also set up “Shihai WEB,” an online platform dedicated to the language of performing arts. Featuring performance-related interviews and reviews, it had covered 11 productions by June 2024.
https://shihai2023.studio.site/

©Takuya Yamahata
Kenta Yamazaki
Critic and dramaturg born in 1983. Major critical works include the series “SF Aspects of Contemporary Japanese Theater” in SF Magazine (November 2014 – November 2017), and “ “Kakkoii” dakede wa nai Mishima e – kinnen no joen kara” (“More than simply “cool”—Mishima as seen from recent performances” (Bungakukai, December 2020). In 2017, Yamazaki participated in The Japan Foundation Asia Center’s “Next Generation: Producing Performing Arts,” a development program for the next generation of young producers in Asia. He is a contributor of reviews focusing on performing arts in the web magazine “artscape.”

Satoshi Okawa
Between 2016 – 2022 Okawa launched several new initiatives as planning and production manager at Kichijoji Theater. He joined syuz’gen LLC in 2022. His principal activities at present include production work for Tokyo Festival’s talent development program “Tokyo Festival Farm Lab,”as well as production for Menicon Theater Aoi in Nagoya. At“Shihai” her responsibilities are focused on back office duties, and managing and operating the magazine’s online presence.

【Facilitator】

Naoto Moriyama
Theater critic, born in 1968. Lecturer at Kyoto University of Art and Design and chief researcher at the university’s Kyoto Performing Arts Center. After a stint editing the center’s journal, “Performing Arts,” Moriyama has been a lecturer in the Department of Scenography Design, Drama, and Dance at Tama Art University since April 2023. He is a Steering Committee member for Kyoto Performing Arts Center, and Program Director in the field of theater in Japan Arts Council’s Funding Department. His publications include “Butai geijutsu no miryoku” (“The Appeal of the Performing Arts”), co-authored with the Foundation for the Promotion of the Open University of Japan.

【Graphic Facilitator】

Junko Shimizu
After graduating from the Department of Information Design at Tama Art University in 2009, in 2013 Shimizu began work and research in “graphic recording,” a method of visualizing discussion, as a member of the “Tokyo Graphic Recorder” project. In the same year she joined Yahoo! Japan as a UX designer. In 2019 she completed a Masters course from the Department of Design, Tokyo University of the Arts. She is currently a lecturer in the Department of Information Design at Tama Art University. She studies visual language from the perspective of media design. Her publications include “Graphic Recorder – giron wo kashika suru gurafikku rekodingu no kyokasho (“Graphic Recorder – A Textbook for Graphic Recording to Visualize Discussions,” published by BNN).

Free

Arts Council Tokyo, 5th floor （Capacity of 40 persons）

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Thursday, December 26, 2024, 12:00
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Activity report Session for Creative Environment projects
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