Jorge Vazquez Villarreal was born and lives in Mexico. He started his artistic studies at the National Conservatory of Music in 1999. He joined Diego Pinon’s Butoh Ritual Mexicano in 2003, and has also trained in Butoh with Akira Kasai and Natsue Nakajima. He studies Kabuki with Irene Akikolida.

Amanda K. Ringger has lived in New York for the past 12 years designing locally, nationally and internationally with artists such as Laura Peterson, Faye Driscoll, Julian Barnett, Alexandra Beller. Kota Yamazaki. Deborah Lose, Cynthia Oliver, Clare Byrne, Antonietta Vicario, Darrah Carr, Karen Love/Umoja, and Mark Jarecke, among others. She received a BA from Goucher College in Baltimore, MD and an MFA in lighting design from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.

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)

Photographer for cokaseki: Tooboe (Howl) (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005

Musician for for Masaki lwana

Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005

Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005

Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005

Koichi & Hiroko Tamano are the directors of Harupin-Ha ButohDance Theatre, which they started in 1972. Former students of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, the Tamanos’ devotion to the mastery of dance is expressed through works that are at once beautiful, graceful, shocking and grotesque.

Koichi & Hiroko Tamano are the directors of Harupin-Ha Butoh Dance Theatre, which they started in 1972. Former students of butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, the Tamanos’ devotion to the mastery of dance is expressed through works that are at once beautiful, graceful, shocking and grotesque.

Minako Seki was born in Nagasaki, from 1985 a dancer for Butoh-Dance-Company DANCE-LOVE-MACHINE, directed by Tetsuro tamura, preformed in Europe with this production in 1986. In 1987 she was co-founder of tatoeba – THEATER DANSE GROTESQUE, the first German-Japanese Butoh Ensemble (Berlin) She has taught workshops in Berlin, Santiago de Chile, Bolivia, Japan, San Fransisco and New York.

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.