KIAC

A place to develop the skills to live together

The fiscal year 2024/25 marks the 10th anniversary of the Kinosaki International Arts Center (KIAC) since its opening in April 2014.
KIAC is a municipal facility in Toyooka city that welcomes artists who are pursuing artistic expression in unique ways to be involved with people and society and let them stay for a certain period of time. This program is called Artists in Residence (AIR), where artists create their work, conduct research, and interact with others. Since its opening, KIAC has hosted 205 groups of artists from 22 countries and regions.
The origin of the word "art" that KIAC is engaged with comes from the Latin word "ars," which means "skills for living." Great art of our time shall encourage and guide us to think about how to live better in today's complex society. KIAC is a place to meet such "art" and to cultivate such "skills for living."

Artists come from around Japan and abroad, and they live in this town for a while as strangers. This creates various moments for them to interact with the local community outside of their creative activities.
Simple conversations while shopping at local stores. Someone kindly helps artists who don't know onsen etiquette. A good time together at restaurants. Artists' children become friends with local children.
These daily scenes emerge as a sign of the hospitality of the people of Toyooka toward visitors who have come to their city from afar and the humble attitude of the artists to learn about the local culture and customs of the land they are visiting, and they represent the exchange among them.
In this manner, through the AIR program, we find heartfelt exchanges that go beyond material values, connecting one person and another. Both artists in residence and locals who host them accept and respect each other for their differences. They exchange their skills for better living in order to develop them together. It is, in a way, linked to the spirit of this town, "Exist together to prosper together."

During the past decade, our society has faced various challenges. While in the process of reconstruction from the earthquakes in 2011 and in 2016, we experienced the COVID-19 pandemic. Wars and conflicts are intensifying in the world, and we again were hit by a great earthquake. In Toyooka city, a theater festival has begun, and a prefectural professional college has been inaugurated. These are major changes that we couldn't have imagined ten years ago. For that reason, we would like to note that small but rich and warm exchanges between artists and local citizens, who have met as strangers, have been taking place, alongside such major events and changes.
We would like to thank everyone who has cooperated and participated in KIAC's projects in various ways, and we kindly ask for continued support.

Kinosaki International Arts Center

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【Open Call Program】
■About the Open Call
The call for applications was open from May 8 to June 26, 2023, and 79 applications were received from 27 countries. A selection committee was held in August, and after interviews with each artist and schedule adjustments, we decided to adopt 11 projects.

■Selection Committee
Satoko Ichihara (Artistic Director of KIAC, Playwright, Director, Novelist, Leader of Theater Company Q)
Tadashi Uchino (Professor at Gakushuin Women's College, Performance Studies)
Tadasu Takamine (Artist, Professor at Tama Art University)
Kazuki Fujita (Performer, Dance Researcher)
Reiko Shiga (Director of KIAC)
Yuichiro Yoshida (Program Director of KIAC)
Maki Hashimoto (Community Collaboration Director of KIAC)

■Selection Criteria
≪Response to Society≫＝Is the artist or project responding in some way to the current society and environment in which we live through their artistic activities?
≪Critical Creativity≫＝Does the projects have the potential to critically examine existing values and common sense, and to update them in terms of art?

■Selected Projects
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Moe Yoshida
Research project for the performance “Vacance”
A research residency for a new work by Moe Yoshida, a director, as well as an actress who has performed in works by marebito theater company and Ikuko Sekita. As in urban life and tourism, a body may move between two points such as the present and the past or future, or reality and imagination. Defining such a body as a "vacational body," Yoshida will conduct fieldwork in the streets of an onsen town, write a script, and create a performance in collaboration with actors.

Sho Takiguchi + Marcelo Evelin
Device for Resonance (working title)
A collaboration between dancer, musician, and sound designer Show Takiguchi and Brazilian choreographer and performer Marcelo Evelin. The pair, from countries located on opposite sides of the globe, Japan and Brazil, will create a duo dance work inspired by their contrasting relationships to an imaginary creature called "antipoda," which means "antipode," or "opposite" in Portuguese.

Maxime Kurvers
OKINA
Rising French director, Maxime Kurvers, noted for his critical works based on his interest in the theatric al form and history, will create a new work based on his research on Japanese traditional performing arts. He will collaborate with actress Yuri Itabashi and translator Akihito Hirano and use a form of storytelling alluding to Rakugo in order to approach the Noh masterpiece titled “Okina.”

Nanako Matsumoto and Kengo Nishimoto / team chiipro
Research project on “waterside area and transformation” for “Kappa Man”
Known for their artistic works created through research about specific area and history, team chiipro - a performance collective formed by Nanako Matsumoto and Kengo Nishimoto - will conduct research on oral traditions, monumental sites, topography, memories, and festivals related to "waterside" and "kappa," in order to construct texts for their new work. From those texts, they will develop a "yokaibody," which transforms a body and dance into a "yokai."

Kumiko Ueda
New creation by “Project Pneuma” (working title)
Returning from a training program in France, Kumiko Ueda - a director celebrated for her numerous works at the Takarazuka Revue - will start a new journey as an independent artist, directing performers with extensive experience and diverse backgrounds. She will relativize the life span and drama of humans by parallelly portraying the time of various life forms such as insects, microorganisms, and plants.

Ira Melkonyan / The Rubberbodies Collective
Blood Thirsty
A Ukrainian artist and biologist based between Malta and Amsterdam, Ira Melkonyan will work on a cross-disciplinary project founded on her research on female hormones and blood. From a transnational feminist perspective, she will question their physiological functions and social meanings in our time, in the form of a lecture performance and an installation.

Neil Luck
Kinosaki Rustic Experiences
An experimental project on human "senses" by London-based composer and artist Neil Luck. Activities developed as approaches such as fieldwork, group listening, and walking in nature away from urban areas, will be recorded in the form of sound, photographs, text, and illustrations, and will culminate in a participatory performance walk.

Eloi Hortence N’da / Para-l’Elles
Le Palmier
Eloi Hortence N'da, choreographer and dancer from Côte d'Ivoire, will work on her solo piece based on her grueling experiences of illness and isolation. As the title “Le Palmier (The Palm Tree)” suggests, the strength and fragility of life will be represented through the body. During the residency, she will also hold a dance workshop to share her artistic activities.

Hanako Hayakawa + Yoh Morishita
hybrid
A collaboration between Hanako Hayakawa and Yoh Morishita, two dancers and choreographers who trained in Europe. The pair of female Asian artists, still based in Europe, will choreograph a piece that intersects their identities established by their respective careers and the cultures and environments they have experienced.

Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot / BVDS
How to be healthy in a sick world?
Amsterdam-based interdisciplinary artist-duo Boogaerdt/VanderSchoot will research Butoh and Yokai in this residency for the creation of their new work. Tracing seemingly negative motifs such as trauma or sickness, they envisage a performance that responds to today's “sick” society, full of difficulties.

Koshiro Hino + Ken Furudate + Masayoshi Fujita + Kanna Taniguchi + Tsuyoshi Maeda
Phase Transition II
A collaboration between composer Koshiro Hino, media artist Ken Furudate, vibraphonist Masayoshi Fujita, percussionist Kanna Taniguchi, and taiko drummer Tsuyoshi Maeda. Taking "Phase Transition" (2023) as a starting point, they will create, record, and offer an open rehearsal of a music theater piece, making full use of large percussion instruments and immersive audio technology.
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These 11 artists and projects were selected as the "Open Call Program".

【Programs other than the Open Call Program】
In addition to the Open Call Program, the following programs are scheduled to be implemented.
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■KIAC Production
KIAC Residence Selection 2023→24 (working title)
Throughout the year, KIAC supports the creation process of artists b y organizing their field research and occasions to share their work with local citizens. Following last year’s success, KIAC will continue to create opportunities for artists to present their works during the Toyooka Theatre Festival 2024. The works will be selected from those created at KIAC in the fiscal year 2023/24 with a specific theme.

KIAC Community Program 2024
The final year of a three-year-program, in which project members research various cultural and natural aspects of Toyooka and create works through interaction and exchange with the local community.
Artist Naomi Ota has been walking around Takeno with the collection of essays “Omoto” as a guide, collecting words and memories of people and landscapes in order to weave stories. Japan Association of Composers for Sumo Hearing Arts (JACSHA) has been researching the surviving traditional performing arts in the city with children to compose new pieces. Filmmaker Shuhei Hatano has documented the nature and culture of Takeno in a video through the fieldwork.
The actuality of the local community has been captured using three different perspectives and methods. These texts, musical pieces, videos, and photographs are archived, so that they can be shared and referenced in the future.

■Partnership Program
Programs implemented in collaboration with domestic and international arts organizations
contact Gonzo + TS Crew
Building a bridge (working tittle)
A research residency for a new creation by contact Gonzo (Japan) and TS Crew (Hong Kong), commissioned by the West Kowloon Cultural District in Hong Kong. The two all-male physical theater and performance collectives, which have a common interest and background in martial arts and stunt work will tackle the theme of “building a bridge,” to explore its multifaceted context - social, political, economic, technological - in relation to the spatial and temporal dimensions of human interference in the world.

Satoko Ichihara
New creation
New creation by the Artistic Director of KIAC. A playwright and director who boldly and precisely portrays the discomfort associated with the lives and sexuality of humans, Satoko Ichihara has been commissioned to create a work for ROHM Theatre Kyoto's Repertory Premiere series, following "The Question of Faeries (Deluxe Edition)" in 2022. She will write a play based on her field research in Seoul, South Korea, and bring it to life together with actors.

■The Other Programs
-Acceptance of theater production students from the Professional College of Arts and Tourism.
-Programs for the Toyooka Theater Festival 2024, a performing arts festival held in the suburbs of Toyooka City.
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The residency programs by the above 17 artists and projects, as well as related programs will be carried out.
We hope that you will continue to pay attention to the activities of Kinosaki International Arts Center in 2024/2025 season, as it marks its 10th anniversary.

March 6, 2024
Kinosaki International Arts Center