KIAC

【Open Call Program】
■About the Open Call
The call for applications was open from June 1 to July 12, 2024, and 66 applications were received from 21 countries. A selection committee was held in August, and after interviews with each artist and schedule adjustments, we decided to adopt 9 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 (Dancer, 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 project have the potential to critically examine existing values and common sense, and to update them in terms of art?
≪Creation of Exchanges≫＝Does the project demonstrate the will and potential to create new exchanges before-during-after the residency?


■Selected Projects
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TRANSIT ARTS LAB + HONEYBEE LINK
MiR (Manager-in-Residence)
A residency program for producers, researchers, and other practitioners in the field of arts management. In the face of numerous social issues such as the widening cultural gap between rural and urban areas in the face of depopulation, and a declining birthrate combined with an aging population, arts managers who are indispensable to sustain the field will be encouraged in their careers, through programs such as “producers' sabbaticals” offering the possibility to pause and reflect, and “producers' meetings” to collaboratively develop ideas for the future.

Yu-Ju Wen + Jang-Chi + Ness Roque + Ming-Chen Lee + KYOTO EXPERIMENT
Cruising: Traveling Tongues
The performance project “Traveling Tongues” is a research and creation process led by four artists from Japan, the Philippines, and Taiwan and focuses on the multilayered and heterogeneous nature of culture and identity found in stories about food. The project is part of the Taipei Arts Festival research program “Cruising” and during the residency the artists will begin the creation process for a performance work to be presented in Taipei and Kyoto.

Artocrite Theater
“The Bacchae − Holstein Milk Cows”
Pursuing social and political themes, Artocrite Theater, a rising contemporary theater company from Hong Kong, will present a work based on a Cantonese translation of Satoko Ichihara's play "The Bacchae − Holstein Milk Cows." The play reinterprets contemporary Japanese theater from the perspective of Hong Kong artists and attempts to unravel various dilemmas surrounding female identity, the ethics of reproduction, and the role of animals in human societies.

Leu Wijee + Nagara Wada
“massageXgossip”
A collaborative project started in 2024 at the ADAM artist lab in Bangkok and Taipei by Indonesian choreographer Leu Wijee and Japanese theater director Nagara Wada. Two artists from different backgrounds will combine massage and gossiping as performative elements of movement and storytelling, and use their relationship as a clue to explore a new grammar of expression that bridges their own culture, language, and artistic fields.

Chia-Ming Wang / Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group + Kuro Tanino / Niwa Gekidan Penino
“The Bathhouse of Honest Desires”
Two internationally acclaimed playwrights and directors, Chia-Ming Wang from Taiwan and Kuro Tanino from Japan have co-written and co-directed a performance inspired by Yasunari Kawabata’s late masterpiece novel Sleeping Beauty. Warmly appreciated at the premier in Taiwan in 2024, the mysterious and comfortable fable for adults, set in a public bathhouse deeply rooted in the cultures of both countries, will be re-staged by eight unique Taiwanese and Japanese actors.

Beatriz Sano + Eduardo Fukushima
“Situation of Experimentation”
A residency to create a new dance performance by Brazilian choreographers and dancers Beatriz Sano and Eduardo Fukushima with collaborators such as filmmakers, musicians, and stage designers. They will create an experimental situation by combining movements born from the exploration of the action of “walking” with video images of the surrounding environment, stage design that mixes nature and artifacts, and live performances by musicians.

Ayaka Nakama ＋ Lucie Ortmann ＋ Katrin Ribbe ＋ Takanori Shimodera [TAIYA]
“Echoes from within the Kitchen”
A cross-disciplinary project by dancer Ayaka Nakama, dramaturg Lucie Ortmann, artist Katrin Ribbe, and architect/food stall researcher Takanori Shimodera [TAIYA]. Fifty years after the first showing of "Semiotics of the Kitchen" (Martha Rosler / 1975), a performance for the camera on the theme of housekeeping tasks, they will examine the social meaning of the kitchen as a place of work in the present time and explore new possibilities for expression.

Arata Mori
A Million Monkeys
"I, who was hikikomori 17 years ago and left Japan and became a filmmaker, return to my hometown and embark on a journey to encounter the other me, who would have been there had I not left Japan at that time."
Taking the “generation of the ice age of employment” as a clue, filmmaker Arata Mori uses psychodrama (= psychotherapy using theater) methods to transcend the boundaries between reality and unreality, self and others, theater and film, and to look at the divisions in contemporary society.

Passepartout Duo + Inoyamaland
“Dispatches”
Two electro-acoustic duos Passepartout Duo (Italy) and Inoyama Land (Japan) will create a performance in the form of an experimental live radio transmission. Multiple FM transmitters and portable radios will be placed throughout the theater to transform the space itself into a musical instrument, creating an immersive and continually evolving soundscape for the audience.
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These 9 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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■Partnership Program
Programs implemented in collaboration with domestic and international arts organizations
Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank
Dance Piece No. 3
As a supplementary prize for the KIAC Award received at Yokohama Dance Collection 2022’s Competition I, Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank, who have been researching and developing a mechanism for creating unique movements, “Physical Catharsis”, will hold a residency. They will create Dance Piece No. 3 as part of the “Wings”: International Dance Project by Dance Base Yokohama for Emerging Creators.

Oriza Hirata ＋ Kaito Nakahori
Theater Opera “The Planet without Sound - Clockwork Universe”
Playwright and director Oriza Hirata and composer Kaito Nakahori will work on their second theater opera. With the themes of the universe and imagery, the latest 3D audio technology will be used to create a multidimensional space in which Hirata's contemporary colloquial theater and Nakahori's contemporary music arias featuring vocalise (singing technique using vowel sounds or nonsense syllables) alternate. The work is a result of exploration to realize an ultimate art work where elements of contemporary theater, music, and art interact.

Dana Michel
“IN WATER I MUST”
New creation by Canadian live artist Dana Michel, following her previous work with the theme of building trust in the workplace, to explore a different kind of trust with the theme of “water”. Rooted in both the artist’s personal experiences and the social and historical trauma in many racialized communities in relation to swimming, she will confront a personal and collective fear of water and explore a performance based on a relationship with water in Kinosaki, a city known for hot springs.

■The Other Programs
-Acceptance of theater production students from the Professional College of Arts and Tourism.
-Programs for the Toyooka Theater Festival 2025, a performing arts festival held in the suburbs of Toyooka City.
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The residency programs by the above 12 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 2025/2026 season.

March 12, 2025
Kinosaki International Arts Center