Abby Walton (Costume Design) is currently assisting Oana Botez-Ban on upcoming productions of Richard I (Classic Stage Company) and Miss Julie (Colgate University), and recently worked with the Moscow Festival Ballet on their touring production of Sleeping Beauty. This piece for the Japan Society is her first solo design effort since arriving to New York City. She graduated from Smith College this spring, and has also studied at the Glasgow School of Art in the U.K. Many thanks to Oana Botez-Ban, the members of Smith College’s Costume Department.

Yanira Castro (New York/Puerto Rico) is the director of Yanira Castro + Company. Although not a butoh dancer per se, her expressionistic and emotionally charged pieces share aspects of its aesthetic. The Village Voice described her off-kilter performers as “radiant mythic beasts, glamorous and terrifying…

JEFF JANISHESKI has trained in butoh since 1989 – including three years with Kazuo Ohno- and Japanese No theatre since 1992; he is also the co-founder of the New York Butoh Festival.

Ralph Lee is a mask maker, theater director and Founding Artistic Director the Mettawee Theater Company. He has been artist in residence in many universities and performing spaces and is a recipient of a Guggenheim Award for Excellence.

Daniel Carter is a musician and improviser playing yearly at the Vision Festival, and internationally with many groups. He has played for many dancers including Margaret Beals, Simone Forti and Laurie Hockman. He has made several CD’s with the group Other Dimensions.

LEIGH EVANS is an international yoga teacher and dancer. Her dance/theatre-work is fed by fascination with performance and meditative traditions of Asia. LEIGH EVANS is an international yoga teacher and dancer. Her dance/theatre-work is fed by fascination with performance and meditative traditions of Asia.

Christian Pincock is a trombonist and composer in the New York area who works in many different musical settings. He has performed internationally at the Louis Armstrong International Jazz Competition in Le Havre, France, the Chiliwack Jazz Festival in British Columbia, and in the U.S. at Birdland, Niagara, Jordan Hall in Boston, and the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.

Marc Ates is a Berlin based director, choreographer performer and lighting designer. From 1993 to 2000, he was a student/dancer of Anzu Furukawa whom he considers his primary professor and teacher. Since 1990, his various art and performance projects (as dancer, performer and director) have spanned Germany, the U.S., Italy, Poland, GUS, France, Spain and Denmark. In the U.S. he has collaborated with the San Francisco based company inkboat. In 1995 Ates founded loplop performance space in Berlin. The same year he formed the dance company cokaseki along with dancer Yuko Kaseki

Sadayuki Hayashi formed his own dance company, Golgi Worx, with Ono Kzuyoshi in 1989. With the aim of fabricating “artistic anti-art,” he began creating and presenting his dance works. He has been active in the Tokyo dance scene, creating short pieces and performing as a dancer in the works of such choreographers as Kota Yamazaki and Tamami Yamada. In 2003, he was a finalist for the Toyota Choreography Awards 2003. He is currently the Anti-Artistic Director of Golgi Worx.

Yukio Suzuki began his butoh training in 1997 and has performed with such groups and artists as Asbestos Studio (the butoh center founded by Akiko Motofuji), Goro Namerikawa (a former member of sankaijuku) and SAL-VANILLA, a multimedia performance group. In 2003 he joined Ko’s company with his performance in [Edge03] in Mexico. His choreography for his own company, Kingyo, was the recipient of the Audience Award in the Toyota Choreography Awards 2005.

DAIJI MEGURO joined Ko Murobushi’s three-man Edge Company in 2004. He since emerging as one of the most thoughtful voices in international Butoh. Meguro is the founder of the NUDE Dance Company.

Daiji Meguro trained under the late Akiko Motufuji, the wife of Tatsumi Hijikata. He has appeared in several productions of Ko & Edge Co. since the 2003 [Edge03] performance in Mexico. In 2004, he launched his own performance company, NUDE. By redefining the physical body based on the ideas of butoh, Daiji aims to develop butoh for the next generation.

Rickard Sporrong is a freelance computer and video artist based in Uppsala. He has collaborated with SU-EN in many live events and film projects. Website: homepage.mac.com/rrongproduction/rronghome

Lee Berwick worked in the South London underground Dub and Industrial
music scene, and has run the recording studio and record company Digi Dub
since 1989. His work is a re-smelting, re- working and re-cycling of
surrounding sound. Current projects include a site-specific audio art
project, inspired by the river Thames, and the video film ‘Yatra’ Berwick and SU-EN have worked in close collaboration since 1994. www.digidub.demon.co.uk

Initially trained in modern dance.She then studied intensively with Yukio
Waguri, and under his guidance formed the Tokyo-based group Shinonome
with Yuko Kawamoto and Asuka Shimada in the mid 1990s. The word shinonome comes from the Japanese term for the twilight sky, when the darkness fades away in daylight. Shinonome’s fresh approach differs from what has been translated in the West as butoh’s “dance of darkness” – instead they show a more twilight world that balances the dark and the light. Chisato Katata’s website: http://www.shinonomebutoh.com

Jonathan Vincent has performed as a pianist, accordionist, and vocalist
throughout the east coast, Germany, Switzerland and France. He has
premiered several compositions by Stuart Saunders Smith and Jef Arnal. Preview recordings at generaterecords.net and adamjameswilson.com. Contact: jonathanvincent@hotmail.com

Robin Dorn is a professional Seattle artist and illustrator, specializing in human anatomy. She has collaborated with Dappin’ Butoh on several projects, designing costumes, scenery, and graphics.

Christopher DeLaurenti is a composer, improvisor, phonographer, and music writer. Concerning his work, he writes, “My music, the offspring of my love affair with sound, incorporates murky atmospheres, unusual field recordings, everyday speech, and an array of instruments deployed in maniacal recombinant polyphony.” (delaurenti.net)

Composition and sound design. Petre received an undergraduate degree in Jazz improvisation at Mannes. He has premiered works at the Kitchen and the Virginia Ballet with Amy Cox and Tai Jimenez and plays saxophone and clarinet with Burnt Sugar. Petre studied within the Sonologie Institute at the Royal Conservatory in DenHaag in the Netherlands.

Aki Bo Nishijima was born in Japan and has been making solo and
group dance works since 1994. Currently she is interested in making a new piece with personal movements and stories in more theatrical frame.This is her first butoh performance.

Timothy R. Pickerill is a writer, artist, musician, and designer working in installation and performance art, as well as painting, photography, and video. Completing studies at San Francisco State University in 1998, after being expelled from Dada studies, he has since self produced many solo and group performance art pieces. He has worked in traditional and nontraditional theater including several years as the Technical Director of both Theater Artaud and Dance Mission Theater in San Francisco and is the technical director of BRIC Studios in Brooklyn.

Timothy Pickerill is a writer, designer, and multi media performance artist. He completed studies at San Francisco State University in 1998 majoring in sculpture with an emphasis on installation and media. Since 1994, he has produced thirteen installation performances. In addition, Pickerill has worked in theater, as technical director and designer. In 1998, he lived in Budapest, Hungary, where he produced his first solo show and was included in two group shows. Since the age of four, his primary influence has been the danger of human extinction posed by modern warfare with the advent of the Atom Bomb. Pickerill’s work, The Omen Project, has been in development since 1997. This project derives from Nemo (Odysseus) of Homer’s Odyssey; nemo meaning no one. The theme of this project being the domination of intellectual technological man over nature culminating in the development of nuclear weapons capable of destroying the world. Enjoy.

Catherine Wilenchek-Iwakawa has resided in NYC for the past 10 years, drawing inspiration from the urban landscape. After working as a fashion stylist in the South, she relocated to New York to study both Fashion design and fine art at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Honing her skills under the watchful eye of such names as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren she was eventually driven to design her own line Atelier Cloth in the form of wearable art. In 1999 she began a life long collaboration with contemporary artist Naoki Iwakawa experimenting with cloth, paint and the elements creating often unpredicted results. Currently she is creating her collection, Atelier Cloth out of her studio at Cave Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Moeno Wakamatsu is a dance/theater artist coming from a background of being a pianist and an architect. She has also been teaching the Feldenkrais Method for 10 years. Her work exists outside of the art of ideas and concepts and aims to direct communication in intensified time and space. She has performed solo works in the US, Canada, and Europe. She has worked with Tetsuro Fukuhara, Mana Hashimoto, Kiyoko Kashiwagi, Joan Laage, Pierre Mansire, Kristin Narcowich, Bo Akiko Nishijima, Atsushi Takenouchi, Nancy Zendora and others.

Multi Media Performance Artist, Composer. In Japanese “zémi” is a name for the shrill loud insect, known in English as a cicada. A special bread of the cicada, known as the periodical cicada, has adapted a unique 17-year lifecycle. These insects present themselves on the surface of the earth for only a month; to mate, sing and die. There is a multitude of ancient stories from every continent about the cicada and their roll in the resurrection of passing souls. In moving I explore their contrast between patience and exhilaration; in hearing I listen for their composition like a frame in the world’s eye; and in living I feel their continuity in dying. Website: www.resonant-wave.net/zemi17htm

Steven Carlino is a butoh influenced multi- disciplinary performance artist. Performed and collaborated with punk, noise avante-jazz bands in the Midwest, designing sound for dance/theater.

Megan Nicely is a dancer/choreographer and educator. After many years directing her company in the bay area she is currently pursuing her Ph.D in Performance Studies at NYU.

MORGAN VON PRELLE PECELLI works as curator, producer, anthropologist and artist in NYC. www.lostnotebok.org

Bill Mullen is a visual artist working in NY, has studied/performed with Takuya Muramatsu (Dairakudakan), has been an active participant in the Butoh-Kan training, Program at CAVE.

Stephanie Lanckton is a dancer/choreographer, trained in Ballet/Modern/Capoeira/Hip-hop. Graduated from Point Park College, attended Intelochen Arts Academy, is a certified Pilates instructor. Performed with Akira Kasai, in “Butoh America”(2007).

A. Dola Baroni is an LA based artist, photographer, choreographer, curator and director who represents the West Coast and bleeds Laker Purple.

JONOTHON LYONS is a company member of Imago Theater Mask Ensemble (3yrs), he has performed with LEIMAY and Mari Osanai; participating in several sessions of the NY Butoh-Kan.

Teerawat Mulvilai (Aka Kage) (Thailand) – Theater director/dancer, Artistic Director\Co-Founder of B-Floor Theatre. Lincoln Center Director’s Lab 2009 trained in Butoh, Top Ma Pab (Northern Thai Martial Art), Viewpoints, and modern dance.

Mana Hashimoto (born: Tokyo) trained in ballet, piano composition and modern dance: New England Conservatory, Berklee Academy of Music and Martha Graham School. She began losing sight at 17, continuing performances/organizing dance for the visually impaired.

Amos Pinhasi has presented hiswork in New York since 1985 and has been produced by DTW’s FreshTracks, The 40Up Project, Joyce Soho, Dance now, Dumbo Dance Festival, and Danspace Project. He has toured his solo work in Switzerland, Austria, Germany and his native Israel.He teaches dance improvisation and yoga internationally.

Irem Calikusu’s life as a dancer started in Istanbul, at the Theater Research Lab with Mustafa Kaplan. Being deeply moved by a butoh performance she saw in Istanbul, she went on to complete a Master’s thesis on but and post war politics in Japan at the Anthropology Department of Mass, Amherst. She has studied with Akira Kasai, Ko Murobushi, and Takuya Muramatsu as well as trained for 2 years at the Cunningham School for Dance. Her biggest inspiration was the 5 months she spent training with Min Tanaka at the Body Weather Farm. Irem has been showing her own work in various venues such as Dixon Place, Movement Research at Judson Church, Cave Art Space and Cunningham Studio.

Parker Pracjek works in the areas of creative writing, Adult Basic Education, literacy through the arts, and dance theatre performance. Her work has been seen in community arts festivals,The Mulberry Street Theatre, The Puffin Room,La Mama, andWOWCafé Theatre. Praciek holds a Master’s degree in Performance Studies from NYU and works as Managing Director of the New York Butoh Festival.

Celeste Hastings is a NYC based choreographer, performer, costume and soundscape designer, and experimental videographer. her work fuses dance, theater and Japanese butoh. A lead dancer for 12 years with post modern butoh company Poppo and Gogo Boys, she has collaborated with many artists/companies such as Richard Move, Noemie Lafrance, Anemone Dance Theater, Black Moon Theater, Mpenp Wakamatsu, NAdine Helstroffer, Marilo, Sanjo, Accion Colectiva Venezuela, Tetsuro Fukuhara and Eri Majima (Japan), Director Antonio Laj (Poland and NY), co-editor with filmaker Simon Grome and is working with Akira Kasai;s Butoh America NYC Production.

Erin Ellen Kelly has trained with butoh masters Ko Murobushi, Takuya Muramatsu, Tetsuro Fukuhara, and Diego Piñon and employs techniques from butoh, qigong, gymnastics, farming, cabaret dancing, and performance action-theater to create new works, ways of moving, and performance installation pieces that comment on the human condition and its relationship to the environment and society. Erin has greeted and collaborated on site specific dance performances in gardens, galleries, warehouse spaces, boats and theaters across the U.S.and Europe and created commissioned work for LaMama in New York and Schloss Bröllin in Germany. Also Founding member of RansomCorp. Active from 1999-20002.

Erin Ellen Kelly creates performance pieces, using found object collages and video of “performed places”, commenting on physical/energetic relationship to place, time, transformation.

Tatsuro Ishii is a dance critic and Professor at Keio University in Tokyo. He writes Cance reviews for the Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun, DanceMagazine, and others. He si the author of such books as The Spirit Journey of the Body Expression, Sexuality of Transvestism, Essays on Female Transvestism, The Climactic Point of Body, etc. He has served is the judge of Cairo IE Theatre Festival Egypt (2002), Director of Butoh Festival in Seoul, Korea (2005), and Judge of Toyota Choreography Award (2006).

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.

Atsushi Takenouchi joined Hoppo-Butoh-ha in Hokkaido, Japan in 1980. He has been developing his own “JinenButoh” since 1986, touring and teaching extensively throughout Japan, Eastern and Western Europe, Asia and Australia. His work is concerned with universal expressions of nature, earth, and ancient life.