DENISE FUJIWARA is a choreographer, dancer, actor, dance impresario and teacher with 27 years of professional experience. Fujiwara’s dance has been featured in dance festivals in Seattle, Washington DC, Vancouver, Calgary, Copenhagen, Ecuador and India. Based in Canada, Fujiwara continues to develop original solo and ensemble dance performance

Takuya Ishide was born in Tokyo in 1958. Former student of Ishi Mitsutaka and Tatsumi Hiikata, he performed in Hijikata’s last work, Tohoku Kabuki Keikaku 2 and 4 in 1985 with Min Tanaka. He also danced with Saburo Teshigawara’s Company, KARAS, touring in France. His solo work has toured Korea, Japan, U.S., and Europe.

Taketeru Kudo trained under two of butoh’s most famous dancers, Akiko Moto- fuji (the widow of butoh’s co-creator Tatsumi Hijikata) and the famed butoh group Sankai Juku (with whom he danced for 5 years and toured internationally). Kudo left Sankai Juku to form his own company in 1997 and began to work with free-jazz musicians from Japan’s urban enclave.

Yoshito Ohno is the son of butoh legend Kazuo Ohno and is a renowned dancer and teacher. His career has literally spanned the entire history of butoh. Since 1986, he has directed all of Kazuo Ohno’s performances, as well as creating solo work and teaching.