Photo：Aya Sunahara
＜Hiroshi Koike Profile＞
Artistic Director・Choreographer・Scenario writer ・Photographer
Hiroshi Koike studied sociology at Hitotsubashi University. After working as a director of TV documentaries, he founded Pappa Tarahumara in 1982. Since then, he has conceived all of the company’s productions and developed projects as writer, director, choreographer and designer. He intrigues many audiences by his method of fusing multiples genres such as dance, theatre, and music, and converting the theater space into one piece of art. His works have been presented in more than 30 countries all over the world, including major festivals such as Venezia Biennnale, Berliner Festspiele, and received high appraisal in reviews by The New York Times and libération etc. He is the nominee of Canada Dora Award for Outstanding Choreography, the recipient of Manchester Evening News Theatre Award and many others.
He has led the company through numerous international collaborations with artists from all over the world, including dancers and musicians from Ireland, Australia, Indonesia and the U.S. He has also developed projects with other artists; some notable collaborators include composer Paul Dresher, jazz pianist Yosuke Yamashita, butoh legend Akira Kasai, Dutch composer Jaap Blonk, multi-media artist Ingo Günter, Sculptor Kenji Yanobe. He has been the director of Koike Hiroshi Performing Arts Institute since 1995, Chairman of The Asian Performing Artists Forum in Okinawa, and Director of Tsukuba Cultural Foundation since 1997. Over the years he has been an invited guest lecturer and taught numerous performance workshops worldwide, and has served as a panelist for many international arts forums, competitions and foundations.
＜Pappa TARAHUMARA Profile＞
Pappa TARAHUMARA is a Performing Arts company founded by the director, Hiroshi Koike in 1982.What makes Pappa TARAHUMARA as distinctive and extraordinary from the other theater companies is their flexibility and synergetic method of their creative process.They will utilize dance, play, music, and art as to present Theatre arts, and attract many audiences and recognized internationally. Various talented artists were gathered at Pappa TARAHUMARA to create an extra ordinal production every year. And every production represents the director's own perception of the world.Please keep your eyes on to Pappa TARAHUMARA's world-wide challenge and their performances. （Website→http://pappa-tara.com）