Matt Grey
Musician for for Masaki lwana
Rob Whitehead
Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005
Bill Fairhall
Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005
Hirokazu Hiraishi
Music for Masaki lwana: Beast of Grass (U.S. Premiere) @ NYBF 2005
Koichi Tamano
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.
Hiroko Tamano
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
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.
SUIT (Nathan Howe and Roland Toledo)
SUIT: Nathan Howe and Roland Toledo moved to New York City to pursue music in 2000; it was not until 2002 that SUIT became the body from which three EPs have been released: Death March (2002), Mas Touching/Ninfa (2003), and Pang OS (2004), also three sound colages, KM (2003) KM 2(2004) and KM 3(2006).
Abby Walton
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
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
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
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
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.
Nancy Zendora
Nancy Zendora established the Zendora Dance Company in 1977. Her work synthesizes Eastern and Western aesthetics, is known for its delicate and sparse aesthetic
Michael Bates
Michael Bates is a New York-based double bassist/composer concentrating on a wide spectrum of original music and creative improvising. In the early 90’s he studied in Japan with the former principal bassist of the Tokyo Symphony Yoshie Nagashima Bates has performed with musicians such as Chad Talmor, John Abercrombie and Dylan Van Der Schyff, and has toured Hong Kong, China, Korea Japan, Canada and the U.S.
Gil Selinger
Gil Selinger: Cellist Composer Soundpainting Conductor Improviser As a cellist, Gil’s background is in Classical Jazz, and Free Improvisation, all of which he has merged into a style called Classical Improvisation He has appeared in every major music space in New York City including Lincoln Center, Tonic, the Knitting Factory and others. Gil has also appeared on tour throughout Europe, the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.
Lily Maase
Lily Masase is a part of New York Sound painting Orchestra Musicians (Guitar)
Sam Kulik
New York Sound painting Orchestra Musicians @ NYBF 2005
Leigh Evans
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
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.
Eric John Eigner
New York Sound painting Orchestra Musicians – Percussion/Clarinet
Caitlin Jemison
New York Sound painting Orchestra Musicians -Vocals

Kaoru Watanabe
Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe’s work is grounded in traditional Japanese music while imbued with contemporary jazz, improvisation, and experimental music elements. His signature skill of infusing Japanese culture with disparate styles has made him a much-in-demand collaborator working with such iconic artists as Wes Anderson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson, Jason Moran, Yo-Yo Ma, Japanese National Living Treasure Bando Tamasaburo, Silkroad Ensemble, and Rhiannon Giddens. A trained jazz musician, he lived in Japan for a decade to connect with his heritage. While there, he became the first American to become a performer and Artistic Director of the iconic taiko drumming ensemble Kodo.
Marc Ates
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
Eric S. Koziol
Eric S. Koziol and inkBoat
Sadayuki Hayashi
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
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
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
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/DIGIDUB
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
Chisato Katata
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
Steve Miller
Steve Miller is a Seattle-based musician, sound collector and visual artist. He is a member of Gamelan Pacifica, Audiofile Collective ,and a former member of Tchkung.
Jonathan Vincent
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
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
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)
Petre Radu Scafaru
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.
Akiko Bo Nishijima
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.
Benjamin Marcantoni
Benjamin Marcantoni was an opera singer in New York Butoh Festival 2003 with an extraordinary vocal and emotional range. Trained in music from an early age, he has a wide variety of stage experience, having performed in venues all over the USA and the Caribbean. He has been active as a singer/songwriter, arranger and stage performer since his arrival in New York City in late 1999. He has also garnered credits as teacher, poet, writer, and graphic designer. Benjamin is the co-founder of the post-alternative rock ensemble Tara’s Road, and was active in the city’s music scene.
Timothy R. Pickerill
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 … Continued
Catherine Iwakawa
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 … Continued
Moeno Wakamatsu
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.
Taylor Kuffner
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 … Continued
Steven Carlino
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
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 Pecelli
MORGAN VON PRELLE PECELLI works as curator, producer, anthropologist and artist in NYC. www.lostnotebok.org
Bill Mullen
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
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).
Dola Baroni
A. Dola Baroni is an LA based artist, photographer, choreographer, curator and director who represents the West Coast and bleeds Laker Purple.
Piotr Redlinkski
NYBF Photographer
Jonothon Lyons
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
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
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
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
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 … Continued
Parker Pracjek
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
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
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 … Continued

Tanya Calamoneri
Tanya Calamoneri works in the areas of contemporary dance, Japanese Butoh, and physical theater. She started choreographing her own work in 1997, via her collective with Allen Willner and Krista DeNio, violent dwarf. Based in San Francisco from 1996-2003, she was ED of Dancers’ Group, and Co-Director of both 848 Community Space and Temescal Arts Center, and was a founding faculty member of the Experimental Performance Institute at New College of CA. She attended Moving On Center School for Participatory Arts and Research from 1996-7 (directed by Martha Eddy and Carol Swann), danced for and was company manager to Kim … Continued