Panelists

Haejin Phang

Critic, Producer, Translator
She has worked in criticism across many different fields, from performing arts to film and contemporary art, receiving awards from the Seoul Performing Arts Festival and more. She has recently also worked as a producer and director, serving as a dramaturge for the National Contemporary Ballet Company’s project “Cross Cut” and planning the exhibition “¡No Dance!: Between Body and Media”. She is currently preparing a dawon project called “Hypermetamorphosis Theatre”. Her many writings and translations include Carl Theodor Dreyer and Roberto Rossellini.

Soyeon Kim

Critic, Editor of Theatre Review magazine
Kim has previously served as editor of The Korean Theatre Journal and as chief editor of both Culture News and weekly@Arts Management. She is currently on the editorial board of Theatre Review magazine. She researches cultural policy for dawon and was on the dawon committee for Arts Council Korea from 2005 to 2009.

Seunghyo Lee

Director, Festival Bo:m
Born in Seoul in 1984. He moved to Tokyo in 2009 where he began working for Asian programs at Festival/Tokyo and Izayoi Yoshidamachi Studio. He also conducts research on Korean dawon and art festivals. In July 2013 he was appointed as the second director of Festival Bo:m and currently works in both Korea and Japan.

Panelists

Kaku Nagashima

Dramaturge, Translator
Born in 1969. A pioneer of dramaturgy in Japan, he is involved with script development from concept to editing and structuring, as well as working with voice and body. He helped created the double bill “Yotsuya Zotanshu” and “Yotsuya Kaidan” for F/T13, alongside Shigeki Nakano. He has also recently been participating in projects outside of theatre buildings, such as for the site-specific House of Atreus project.

Yoshiji Yokoyama

Literary Department, Shizuoka Performing Arts Center
Born in Chiba in 1977. He studied theatre in France from 2000 and then joined the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center in 2007 as a production co-ordinator. In 2009 he joined the Literary Department at SPAC and since then has handled the center’s overseas commissions. He is a part-time lecturer at Gakushuin University, having gained his Ph.D. in theatre studies from Paris West University Nanterre La Défense. His thesis was on the theatre theory of Aristole. His translations include “Les Marchands” by Joël Pommerat.

Eiichiro Hirata

Faculty of Letters, Keio University
German-language theatre researcher. He received his Ph.D. from Keio University and has been a professor there since 2012. His writings and co-writings have been published in Japan and Germany, and his co-translations include “Ästhetik des Performativen” (Erika Fischer‐Lichte) and “Postdramatisches Theater” (Hans‐Thies Lehmann).

Masahiko Yokobori

Dramaturge, Festival/Tokyo 2014 Directors Committee
Born in 1986. He completed his Ph.D. at the Department of Musical Creativity and the Environment, Tokyo University of the Arts. He majored in dramaturgy at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig. He has worked as a production co-ordinator for “Japan Syndrome”, festival of contemporary Japanese work programmed at Hebbel am Ufer (HAU) in May 2014, as well as serving as a dramaturge for opera at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and Nissay Theatre. At present, he is a researcher at Tokyo University of the Arts’ Graduate School and for Arts Council Tokyo (music and theatre).

Panelists

Qingmei Tao

Researcher at Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Editor of Beijing Culture Review, Theatre Critic
Born in 1974. Since 2000 she has been attached to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, an influential think tank. She was a guest researcher at Columbia University from 2009 to 2010, and her writings include “A Thirty-Year Review of Experimental Theatre in China 1982-2012″ (2013).

Xiaoxing Sun

Critic, Writer, Director, Lecturer at Tianjin Conservatory of Music
Born in 1986. He researches Chinese theatre history and theory. He has been invited to the Golden Hedgehog University Theatre Festival, Beijing Fringe Festival, Small Theatre Big Drama Asia Dialogue (Hong Kong), TPAM in Yokohama 2014, and many others. His writings include “Re-Theatre: The Independent Theatre Cities Map” (2013).

Panelists

Sumiko Kumakura

Department of Musical Creativity and the Environment, Tokyo University of the Arts
After working for the Association for Corporate Support of the Arts, she joined the Department of Musical Creativity and the Environment at Tokyo University of the Arts in 2002. She has worked with regional art projects such as Toride Art Project (Ibaraki Prefecture) and Art Access Adachi (Tokyo). She investigates the relationship between arts management and the civil society, and makes proposals for cultural policy.

Sasana Nemoto

Public Relations Department, Asahi Breweries, Ltd.
Nemoto joined Asahi in 1999. After working in the company’s Osaka office, she was responsible for Association for Corporate Support of the Arts for 12 years from September 2002. In this time she developed a range of partnerships between Asahi and the arts, including the Asahi Art Festival, Asahi Art Square, Sumidagawa Art Project, and the Lobby Concerts series. After experience in theatre, art and music projects nationwide, she moved to the Public Relations Department in September 2014.

Tetsuo Kuwaya

Executive Director, ZA-KOENJI
He graduated with a degree in theatre from Nihon University. He started as a stage lighting designer for the Nissay Theatre while still at college, before going on to handle the lighting for companies such as Jiyu Gekijo and Black Tent, and Butoh dance performances. He then served as technical manager at theatres such as Setagaya Public Theatre. He was head of Kani Public Arts Center before becoming Executive Director of ZA-KOENJI in west Tokyo. He is also a part-time lecturer in theatre at Nihon University.