Solo performance "The Dance Today - Body and Space" performed by Hissako Horikawa

When: 29 March 2019, 19:00

Where: State Puppet Theater - Plovdiv

Hissako Horikawa is co-founder of the world-famous Body Weather Laboratory together with legend Ming Tanaka and lead performer in his group. Since 1998, Horikawa has begun to work as a solo artist and collaborates with some of the best contemporary dancers, artists and musicians from around the world. She conducts regular dance and actor workshops at universities in the Netherlands, Spain, France and others. She is an artistic co-director of the Water and Land Arts Festival "Niiga".

© Hissako Horikawa

Hisako Horikawa, performing artist & dancer & choreographer

Hisako Horikawa (Niigata, Japan) studied improvised music with Takehisa Kosugi. Afterwards, she devoted herself to voice, performing for four years. Since 1978 she has been inquiring into the body and dance with Min Tanaka. With Tanaka she was the co-founder of the Body Weather Laboratory, and until 1998 she was working and dancing with her troupe Maijuku, and at the Body Weather Farm in Mountainside in Japan. For a period of 20-year,s she took part in all activities with Min Tanaka, such as performing, workshop leading, organising festival, farming and agriculture among others. In 1997 she received new
face price from Japan critic association.
In 1998 she began to work on her own and went back to live in Niigata. There she started dancing in ancient alleys trying to connect to the spirit of the spaces. Since 2005 she has been visiting and participating in her city’s small areas traditional dance Bon Odori. She founded an association to support local traditional performing arts. In 2012 she was invited to be the artistic director at The Water and Land - Niigata Art Festival. Since 1980 Horikawa performed and gave workshops all over Europe. In 1998 she met the Bulgarian theatre artist Elena Panayotova and was invited to perform in Plovdiv European Cultural Month 1998. She continued teaching regular classes at Plovdiv University and New Bulgarian University for three years.
Today she mainly does solos and works with a variety of artists and musicians in different countries. She has danced with Tristan Honsinger (cello) and Ab Baars (sax), and since 2004 she has danced in the Duch Punk Rock Band with The EX. She has been dancing in the street since 2001, especially in old areas. She interrelates architecture and the community, working with children and non-professionals, and she recovers the old dancers in the city who had practically vanished. In recent years she developed the performances “The wind, the bear and yesterday" (2016), “Day and day” (2017) and “Dance with trees” 2018

The performance is part of the project "The Spirit of the Japanese Doll: Creating a Puppet Theater Performance and the Exchange of Japanese Artists", which is part of the official programme of Plovdiv - European Capital of culture 2019, FOCUS: Japanese Culture Programme, which is implemented in partnership with the EU-Japan Fest Foundation.