Photo: Zan Yamashita
Kim Itoh led the Japanese dance scene since the 1990s, and after traveling across the world as a backpacker from 2005 to 2006, he suddenly declared that he would stop creating his own works. Zan Yamashita, based in the Kansai area, has developed original methodologies and constantly been presenting his works at ST Spot in recent years. These two artists collect words and movements that float in society and weave them into a temporal and spatial density.
Directed and choreographed by: Zan Yamashita
Performer: Kim Itoh
Studied under the butoh dancer Anzu Furukawa in 1987. Founded Kim Itoh + the Glorious Future in 1995. Won a prize at the Bagnolet International Choreography Competition in 1996, the Terayama Shuji Award of the Asahi Performing Arts Award in 2001, and Yokohama Award for Art and Cultural Encouragement in 2008. Set off for a travel across the world as a backpacker in 2005, and disbanded the Glorious Future in 2011. He has been workshopping and choreographing for young students, producing “Oyaji Cafe” where oyaji (middle-aged men) dance and serve, and a guest professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
Choreographer / performance maker. Among his works are It is written there that asks audience to turn the pages of a 100-page book and watch the stage in turn, It’s just me, coughing in which “inhale” and “exhale” signs and text from haikus on a screen correspond with a body, The Sailors where performers dance on a swaying stage, Daikoshin in which he murmurs about phenomena in the world on a real railroad track, It is something like a garden which is a network of communication using abandoned rubbish.
