The Saison Foundation
2023 Grant Awards(April 2023)
TOKYO (April 2023) – The Saison Foundation of Tokyo, Japan, announces grants totaling ¥65
million awarded to the following forty-four individuals and organizations, in addition to the
Saison Artist in Residence program as well as public relations activities and networking
related to the grant programs. All grants are for activities taking place between April 2023
and March 2024.
Please note that the information below is based on applications as of January 23, 2023, andis subject to change without notice.

1. Direct Support to Artists
1. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Saison Fellows I / II
Saison Fellows I(26 recipients: ¥39 million)

Two-year grant of ¥1 million per year

Newly Selected First-Time Grantees (fiscal 2023–2024)

Keiko Yamaguchi (b. 1986) BRDG

theater

The Kyoto-based theater artist and actor Keiko Yamaguchi started working under thename BRDG in 2011. Her experience of studying theater in the United Kingdom led
her to make creating work with collaborators with different cultures and languages acentral facet of her practice. Following her return to Japan, she has pursued an ongoingmodel of international co-production by undertaking interviews and creative
collaboration with people in Kyoto with foreign heritage. She currently works at a
Photo: Koichiro Kojima

community cafe while building links between theater and everyday life. Yamaguchi isalso active as an actor, interpreter, and assistant director at theater festivals and international projects. She
served as facilitator at Tokyo Festival Farm 2022 Camp and will take part in a residency at Kinosaki with
PETA in 2023. https://brdg-ing.tumblr.com/

Ayane Nakagawa (b. 1991) Suichu-megane∞dance

Based in Tokyo, Ayane Nakagawa is a director, choreographer, and dancer. Instead ofdance purely for art’s sake, she aspires to find a creative role for dance within theworkings of society through the independent performances and collaborations sheplans and produces. Her recent work my choice, my body, was highly acclaimed for its
attempt to connect traditional folk performing arts and aesthetics with contemporary
dance contexts. At Yokohama Dance Collection 2021 Competition I, Nakagawa won the
Photo: Genta

Jury Prize, French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographer, and Architanz Artist

Support Award. In 2023, she will participate in Camping at Le CN D, France, and perform in a production of

The Bacchae–Holstein Milk Cows in Germany. https://www.suichumegane.com/

The Saison Foundation: 4F Kyobashi Yamamoto Bldg 3-12-7 Kyobashi, Chuo-ku Tokyo 104-0031, Japan
Tel: +81 3 3535 5566 Fax: +81 3 3535 5565 Email: foundation@saison.or.jp Website: https://www.saison.or.jp/

Nanako Matsumoto (b. 1992) team chiipro

dance

The Tokyo-based Nanako Matsumoto is a choreographer, dance artist, and performer.
She develops her dance practice as a means of engaging critically with the body. Her
output comprises dance works that incorporate lecture performances, interweaving
dance and text readings based on research. By manifesting text onstage as script or
voice, the audience builds up contexts and questions about the body and shares in theexperience of the dance emerging. Matsumoto staged work at Kyoto Experiment inPhoto: Haruka Oka
Courtesy: Kyoto Experiment2021 and 2022. In 2023, she will start developing hysteria Project with the aim ofstaging it in January 2024. https://www.chiipro.net/

Newly Selected Second-Time Grantees (fiscal 2023–2024)
dance

Ayano Yokoyama (b. 1987) lal banshees

Ayano Yokoyama is a Tokyo-based choreographer and dancer who runs the female
dance company lal banshees. In her work, she seeks out original forms of movementwith a focus on individual sensations. Rooted in a sense of terroir gained from everyday
life in her home prefecture of Nagano that is rich in natural beauty, she envisions
contemporary problems and sensations, reality and unreality, as well as the otherpeople, pasts, and futures she does not know. Her dance is characterized by its
elaborate connection with sound and its scenically aware spatiality, and choreography
unrestrained by notions of gender. She creates performances that are uniquely dance in nature, featuring theirrepressible and what unintentionally overflows. At Yokohama Dance Collection 2020 Competition I,
Yokoyama received the Jury Prize as well as the Porosus Endowment Fund Camping 2020 Prize. In 2022, she
received the 16th JaDaFo Dance Award and performed at Aerowaves Spring Forward Festival. She was a
2021–22 Saison Fellow I grantee. In 2023, she will revive an earlier piece and hold a screening of a filmed
performance. http://www.yokoyamanaa.com/

Akira Nakazawa (b. 1992) Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblankperformance

Based in Tokyo, Akira Nakazawa is a stage designer who works with fellow
scenographer Ayaka Ono. Foundational to their practice is extracting the values of thedifferent individuals involved in creating a performance as well as the values of thecollective that arises from interaction among those individuals. Instead of devotion toexternal guiding principles like playwriting in theater or choreographic concepts indance, they emphasize direct interaction between performers and audiences, treating
Photo: Dan Åke Carlsson

performance as a site for communication in society. Their work forms as the composite

of various factors, not only related to people but also time and place. Nakazawa was a 2021–22 Saison Fellow
I grantee. At Yokohama Dance Collection 2022 Competition I, he and Ono won the Prize of the French Embassyin Japan ‒ Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels, for Young Choreographers and Kinosaki International
Arts

CenterPrize.

In

2023,

they

plan

to

stage

https://spacenotblank.com/

2

work

in

Kanagawa,

Kyoto,

andTokyo.

Newly Selected Third-Time Grantees (fiscal 2023–2024)

Shuntaro Matsubara (b. 1988) grasstheater

A Kyoto-based playwright, Shuntaro Matsubara is unusual in the Japanese theater
world in that he focuses solely on writing plays and does not direct. His work ischaracterized by its highly rhythmical style. He has worked with directors and actors
to stage numerous productions. Recently, he has also worked with grass, a collective
without a director. In addition to plays, his wide-ranging literary output includes novels
and plays. Matsubara searches for new ways to encounter audiences through writing
Photo: Hisashi Matsumotoand staging texts in various formats. In 2019, YAMAYAMA (I Would Prefer Not To) won

the Kishida Kunio Drama Award. In 2023, he will premiere a new work with Spacenotblank.
http://matsubarashuntaro.com/

Midori Kurata (b. 1987) akakilike

dance

Midori Kurata is a Kyoto-based director, choreographer, and dancer. Confronting bothherself and others on the occasion of creating each work, she seeks out the possibilities
of dance by using the stage structure to build up the phenomena that arise there as
fiction. Since 2016, she has led the group akakilike, comprising only herself and nonperformers. In its work, it aspires to engage with each production with actors and nonactors all on an equal footing. Sensing how the “liveness” of performance has grown
weaker due to the coronavirus pandemic, Kurata is endeavoring to create work thatbrings audiences closer to performance. She was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2019–20 and a Saison Fellow I
grantee in 2021–22. In 2023, her major work Family Portrait will be staged at Kunstenfestivaldesarts andthen tour to Kyoto. https://akakilike.jimdofree.com/

Continuing Grants (fiscal 2022–2023)

Shinichi Anasako (b. 1990) egonaku

theater

Shinichi Anasako is a playwright and director based in Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, whofounded egonaku in 2012. His work aims to create new theater in a regional communitythat is relevant nationally and internationally. His work is characterized by a style that
focuses on the personal and ordinary and attempts to find the ways of the world, rooted
in playwriting that incorporates lyrics and directing that utilizes musical elements inspeech and structure. In 2018, Anasako started an ongoing project at Miyako, Iwate. In
2022, he began a three-year post as an associate artist at THEATRE E9 KYOTO, during
which he will produce three works. In 2023, he will stage performances in Kitakyushu and Kyoto as well as
continue to develop his wide-ranging activities in various locations. http://buru-egonaku.com/

3

Kentaro Otsuka (b. 1998) Theatre Company Awai

theater

The playwright and director Kentaro Otsuka is based in Tokyo and founded Theatre
Company Awai in 2017. Wary of modern literary naturalism and drawn instead to theclassics, he strives to position his own work within the lineage of modernist literaturethat established more experimental forms of expression. Referencing modernist
predecessors like Kenichi Yoshida and Saiichi Maruya, he applies the hip-hop techniqueof sampling to incorporate examples of Japanese and foreign classics from noh to rakugo,
Shakespeare, and Poe. In his work, Otsuka aspires to rediscover the classics with audiences and so create a
new genealogy of Japanese literature. In 2023, his play Sonnet will be published by Kokushokankokai and hewill undertake research and workshops ahead of the premiere of a new play in May 2024.
https://gekidanawai.com/

theater

Yuta Hagiwara (b. 1983) Kamome Machine

The Tokyo-based director Yuta Hagiwara founded Kamome Machine in 2007. By
antagonizing the individual body with its surrounding problems, he presents conceptsof the public that diverge from existing connotations. Though his previous plays dealt
with political and social issues like the Fukushima nuclear disaster and JapaneseConstitution, his recent work (such as a production of Samuel Beckett’s Happy Daysand a “telephone theater” project in which the audience experiences a one-to-one
Photo: Rakutaro Ogiwara

performance by an actor by telephone) has expanded the problematics he explores tothe nature of the public that emerges from relationships between individuals. Hagiwara

was a 2019–20 Saison Fellow I grantee. In 2023, he will create a work-in-progress version of a new piece andstudy in New York on an Asian Cultural Council fellowship. https://www.kamomemachine.com/

Reisa Shimojima (b. 1992) KEDAGORO

dance

Reisa Shimojima is a Tokyo-based choreographer, director, and dancer who founded thedance company KEDAGORO in 2013. Based on her principle that dance is a means of
exploring the world, she engages in a practice applying body-centric approaches toframeworks of topical social issues, historical incidents, and controversies about artistic
activities. Working in both Japan and overseas, she endeavors to use dance as a way oftaking up unanswered social questions and reflecting with others on the complexities
Photo: Mizuki Satoof humankind that elude norms and logic. She also aspires to break down people’s

indifference through forms of expression that change their perception of the world. At Yokohama Dance
Collection 2017 Competition II, Shimojima won the Best Newcomer and Touchpoint Art Foundation awards.
In 2021, she won the Kyoto Prize and Audience Prize at the Kyoto Choreography Award. In 2023, she plans tostrengthen her overseas activities and conduct creative development and research residencies ahead of a fullproduction in the future. https://www.kedagoro.com/

4Koichiro Tamura (b. 1992) DANCE PJ REVO

dance

Yokohama-based choreographer and dancer Koichiro Tamura founded DANCE PJ
REVO in 2011. Following a period when he worked mainly in Kyoto, he is today active
internationally, receiving commissions from major festivals in South Korea, France,
Romania, Britain, Hong Kong, and other countries. He conjures up what he calls“minimal hardcore,” a worldview achieved with his unique sensibility and physicalstrength that seems to confront the viewer. He also has a parallel career as an afterPhoto: Takashi Kanai

school children’s support worker and therapist, working to build a future for children

through dance. Tamura won the French Embassy Prize for Young Choreographer at Yokohama Dance
Collection 2018 Competition I and the Sibiu International Theatre Festival Award that same year. He was a
2020–21 Saison Fellow I grantee. In 2023, he plans to hold workshops with a low participation fee andpremiere a new work.
https://danceprojectrevo.wixsite.com/dance-project-revo

Ayaka Nakama (b. 1992)

dance

Based in Hyogo, Ayaka Nakama is a dancer who performs widely in many different
types of dance, theater, and performance while also creating her own work. Freeway

Dance has been staged at numerous festivals at home and abroad. She has received
acclaimed for her style that fixates on the state of the body that is choreographed bysomeone or something, seeks out phenomena that eschew the label of dance, and createsmeans of sharing the moments when they arise with others. She also searches for ways
Photo: beaborgers.

to expand the scope and possibilities of the occupation of dancer. From 2018 to 2020,

Nakama has been an associate artist at DANCE BOX. In 2021, she staged Freeway Dance in Europe. In 2022,
she won the Kobe Nagata Culture Encouragement Prize. In 2023, she plans to stage Freeway Dance in the
United States as well as produce and premiere a new work tentatively called Odoriba Legend.
https://ayakanakama.wixsite.com/official

Masamitsu Araki (b. 1981)

performance

Masamitsu Araki is a Kyoto-based artist, sound designer, and musician. He builds
unique sound field spaces that take acoustic experience and fieldwork as their starting
points. His recent practice and ideas have centered on the concept of replaying.
Intermixing various elements as the source for sounds, he constructs unprecedented
performances that incorporate the dramatic nature of time and space. In 2020, Araki
held a solo exhibition at Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art. In 2021, he staged a
Photo: beaborgers.

work at Kyoto Experiment and was invited to present Public Address – Sound of Placeat Kunstenfestivaldesarts. In 2023, he plans to start an ensemble project dealing with songs and voice, and topresent a new work. https://www.masamitsuaraki.com/

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Jang-Chi (b. 1983) OLTA

performance

The Tokyo-based Jang-Chi directs and conceives performances. He founded OLTA in2009. With a focus on the collective acts that visible in communities and thecommunication that unfolds there, he explores questions about the creative act and, byextension, primordial human desire, sensation, and aspiration. His work reconfiguresand restages past voices, records, folk tales, work songs, movements, incidents, and soon, dealing with urban planning during modernization, industrial structures, society
and history that cannot be applied uniformly across race and gender, and repeatedstructures. Jang-Chi staged a work at YPAM Direction 2021 and plans to stage another work at YPAM
Direction in 2023. https://olta.jp/

Romance Hashimoto (b. 1995)

performance

Romance Hashimoto is a director and choreographer based in Tokyo. Employing
conceptual approaches, they integrate aspects of pop and street culture to create ahighly contemporary style of performance. Reconstructing their subjects throughcollage, visuals, and an aesthetic consistent across all the elements that make up theirwork, they delve into themes from many different angles to present new hypotheses.
Their interdisciplinary practice transcends the boundaries of existing artistic genres
and categories. Hashimoto won Best Newcomer at Yokohama Dance Collection 2020 Competition II. In 2023,
they plan to conduct research for a new work to premiere in 2024. https://www.romance-hashimoto.com

Saison Fellows II
Newly Selected Grantees (fiscal 2023–2026)¥1 million per year

Pink No. 3 (b. 1982) Momochi no sekai

theater

The Kyoto-based Pink No. 3 is a playwright and director. A former undertaker, hefounded Momochi no sekai in 2015. His work is known for blurring the line between theliving and the dead, and for its unforgiving portrayal of the darker side of humanity
and society. His recent output includes Desert Sea (2020) and Water Lily (2021) thatboth featured sign language. By emphasizing audience accessibility and casting deaf
actors, he aims to create theater accessible to other kinds of audiences and engage in
Photo: chanmi

new challenges. In 2023, Pink No. 3 plans to put on a production in Osaka as well as

write for theater productions in Seoul, Osaka, and Tokyo. https://momochinosekai.tumblr.com/

Yohei Hosokawa (b. 1978) horobite

theater

Based in Tokyo, Yohei Hosokawa is playwright, director, composer, and producer. He
has served as artistic director of the theater company horobite since 2010. His work
theatrically and indirectly relates the harsh, hopeless predicament into which we havefallen. He shifts styles as befits each work, from Hyper-Colloquial Theater to Theaterof the Absurd, depicting structural violence in society and examining the people who
slip out of those structures. Emphasizing the process of searching for language, his
Photo: Yohei Hosokawa

work is carefully created out of meticulous research, the imagination, and dialogic

rehearsals. In 2023, Hosokawa plans to stage a production in Tokyo and conduct research about theater interms of social structures. https://horobite.com/

6Newly Selected Grantee (fiscal 2023–2025)¥2.5 million per year

Kitamari (b. 1983) DANCE COMPANY KIKIKIKIKIKI

dance

The choreographer Kitamari is based in Kyoto and Hokkaido. She is artistic director ofthe dance company KIKIKIKIKIKI, which she founded in 2003 and has staged
numerous performances since. In 2018, she switched to a project-oriented style in which
she brings together a team for each work. Originally in Kyoto, she relocated in summer
2022 and now works between two bases. Her wide-ranging, transdisciplinary practiceactively embraces other fields, such as her project to choreograph all the symphonies of
Design: Takashi Tsuji

the composer Gustav Mahler ongoing since 2016 and a series of dance adaptations of

the plays of dramatist Shogo Ota since 2021. She was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2009–10 and 2018–19, and a
Saison Fellow I grantee in 2020–21. In 2016, Kitamari won the New Artist Award at the Agency for Cultural
Affairs National Arts Festival. In 2022, she staged a work at HOTPOT East Asia Dance Platform. In 2023,
she plans to stage performances in Kyoto and Sapporo, and carry out research ahead of a premiere in 2024.
https://ki6dance.jimdofree.com/

Continuing Grants (fiscal 2022–2024)¥2.5 million per year

Yudai Kamisato (b. 1982) Okazaki Art Theatre

theater

Yudai Kamisato is a playwright and director based in Tokyo who founded Okazaki Art
Theatre in 2003. With a focus on migration and crossing borders, his work examines
the diverse and layered nature of society. His work frequently involves visiting placesand developing ideas from the anecdotes he collects. He is constantly asking what is
the Japanese that is understandable to non-speakers and work that is sociallyaccessible. Okazaki was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2011–12, 2013–14, and 2015–16. His
awards include Best Director at the Toga Directors Competition 2006 and the Kishida
Kunio Drama Award in 2018. In 2023, he will complete a residency and stage a work in São Paulo and thenderivations on the same theme in Okinawa and Nagasaki, among other plans. https://okazaki-art-theatre.com/

Suguru Yamamoto (b. 1987) Theater Collective HANCHU-YUEI

theater

The Tokyo-based playwright and director Suguru Yamamoto founded Theater
Collective HANCHU-YUEI in 2007. With a focus on the artistic elements he had
gleaned from the cinema, literature, music, and visual art from his childhood, heconstructs a theatrical world that vividly reflects contemporary information society
whose ethics are rapidly changing. He actively engages in staging performances in Asia
and North America as well as international co-productions, providing scripts andnetworking, and working to expand his field of activities beyond the borders of Japan.
He was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2015–16 and 2017–18 and a Saison Fellow I grantee in 2020–21. In 2014,
he won Best Script and Best Play at the Bangkok Theatre Festival. In 2019, he studied in New York as an
Asian Cultural Council 2018 grantee. In 2022, he won the Kishida Kunio Drama Award. In 2023, his wideranging plans include a four-city tour of Banana Flower Can Be Eaten, workshops, and a solo project.
https://www.hanchuyuei2017.com/ https://note.com/suguru_2/

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Pijin Neji (b. 1980) neji&co. (dance)dance

Pijin Neji is a Kyoto-based dancer and choreographer. His solo dance work is known fortaking a microscopic view of his own body, while his choreography treats dancers’ bodies
materially. In 2020, he founded the company neji&co. to develop a choreographic
practice for gaining hope for the future, and relocated to Kyoto. His work emphasizes
creating a performing arts time span and space within a theater venue that synthesizes,
in the form of a performance, the body language and gestures of dance that are lost ina moment of aimless movement. Neji was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2015–16. He won
the Yokohama Dance Collection 2011 Jury Prize and the F/T Award for his entry in the F/T Emerging Artists
Program at Festival/Tokyo 2011. In 2016, he was the curator of the Our Masters Tatsumi Hijikata program at
the Asian Arts Theatre in Gwangju, South Korea. In 2023, he plans to stage solo and company performancesin Tokyo as well as premiere a new work in Tokyo and publish a booklet, among other plans.
http://nejiandco.com/

Continuing Grants (fiscal 2021–2023)¥3 million per year

Takuro Suzuki (b. 1985) CHAiroiPLIN

dance

Director, choreographer, and dancer Takuro Suzuki founded CHAiroiPLIN in 2007.
Balancing superb physicality and structured storytelling, he creates work thatenthralls even people who have never seen a stage performance before. Through hishighly original style that freely yet precisely incorporates live musical performance,
onomatopoeia, video, and more, he delivers the emotional resonance that is unique tocontemporary dance. He has boldly reinterpreted famous works from across the world,
including the Dance Play series based on foreign theatre works (especially
Shakespeare), the Dance Novel series based on Japanese literature, and the Dance Fairy Tale series based on
picture books from all over the globe, in so doing powerfully setting out new possibilities for the performing
arts. Suzuki was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2016–17 and 2018–19. In 2019, he won the New Artist Award at
the Agency for Cultural Affairs National Arts Festival. In 2023, he will tour new work with his company,
starting with his postponed Korean co-production Spring, Spring from the Dance Novel series.
http://www.chairoiplin.net/

Kaori Seki (b. 1979) KAORI SEKI Co. PUNCTUMUN

dance

Kaori Seki is a choreographer and dancer who founded KAORI SEKI Co.
PUNCTUMUN in 2013. Her work reflects on the sensory functions (five senses) thatanimals and humans use to detect the outside world and the nonverbal communication(emotion) lost when humans acquired language. Taking inspiration from insects andplant and animal ecology, she looks back on the living creature that is the human in its
primal state. She attempts to conjure up moments of sensory balance for audiences,
Photo: Yasuo Kuboi

such as by triggering their skin sensations through what they see, or integrating

stimuli that come from smell. In 2012, Seki won (with Teita Iwabuchi) the French Embassy Prize for Young
Choreographer at Yokohama Dance Collection EX 2012 and the Toyota Choreography Award Next Generation
Choreographer Award. In 2017, she presented a work at HOTPOT East Asia Dance Platform. In 2019, shetook Wo CO on a European tour. She was a Saison Junior Fellow in 2014–15 and 2016–17. In 2023, she plans
to hold a presentation for overseas visitors at YPAM, a public rehearsal, and a workshop, and to conduct
research. https://www.kaoriseki.info/8

Continuing Grants (fiscal 2021–2024)¥2 million per year

Megumi Kamimura (b. 1977)

dance

Choreographer and dancer Megumi Kamimura began staging solo work from 2004.
From 2011, she started working with the visual artist Shinichi Takashima under thename Zengo and then, from 2016, with the visual artist Michiko Tsuda as baby tooth.
Her wide-ranging practice also includes staging performances as a collective with ateam of dancers. Based on the premise that the body exists materially yet is alive forfundamentally no reason, her work observes human forms and the complexity of
Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

human movement, which she reconstructs from various perspectives. She creates andstages work that is conscious of questions not only about content but also the process by which a performanceis made. Kamimura staged a work at Festival/Tokyo 2019. In 2023, she will stage a performance at her studio,
YUNGURA, and take part in an exchange residency project. http://kamimuramegumi.info/

Continuing Grants (fiscal 2020–2023)¥3 million per year

Masako Yasumoto (b. 1974)

dance

The Tokyo-based choreographer and dancer Masako Yasumoto’s work attempts topresent the fundamental power and innovative values of dance. In addition to dance,
she is active across a wide range of other fields, including theater, music, moving image,and fashion, and is known for the unpredictability of her work and for her choreographythat resonates with the physical sensations of the audience. Yasumoto’s prolific output
includes co-productions and collaborations with educational institutions and theaters,
and holding workshops that use the body to teach sex education. In 2023, she will stage
a revival in Toyohashi and Yokohama, hold a modern dance revitalization project for public halls in Aichi andGifu, and complete an artistic residency in Marseilles. http://yasumotomasako.net/

2. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Sabbatical Program

1 recipient: ¥1 million

This program awards grants up to ¥1 million to individual artists who wish to travel abroadand encounter intercultural experiences. Applicants must have: (a) a working base in Japan;(b) more than ten years of professional working experience in one of the following occupations:playwriting, directing, or choreography; and (c) plans to travel abroad for more than one month.

Maki Morishita (dance)
A trip along the Mount Everest trekking route and a trip tracing Beethoven’s roots (approximately
two months from August 2023)

9

2. Partnership Programs
This category includes programs in which The Saison Foundation provides up to three yearsof support to individuals and organizations whose aims are to improve the infrastructure ofcontemporary performing arts in Japan or to organize international exchange projects andthus enhance the visibility of Japanese performing arts around the world.

1. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Creative Environment Innovation Program
Grants and the use of studios and guest rooms are awarded to individuals and organizations
conducting projects aimed at improving the infrastructure of contemporary performing arts inJapan.
5 recipients: ¥8 million
Organization / Representative
Newly Selected Grants

Specified Nonprofit Corporation Explat / Yuko Uematsu
Battery Art Manager Mentorship Program Phase 2
A mentorship program focused on performing arts production coordinators. It attempts to build a
direct support network for producers.
April 2023–December 2023
Online, Tokyo
https://battery-am.studio.site/¥1.5 million

Setouchi Circus Factory / Michiko Tanaka
Japanese Contemporary Circus Database Project
Creating a database that provides an overview of artists, theaters, and productions in Japan withthe aim of building a Japanese contemporary circus network.
April 2023–December 2023
Online, Paris, Kanagawa
https://scf.or.jp/en/network-e¥1.5 million
Support for New Projects: 2022–

The Smaller Theatre Initiative / Masashi Nomura
Creative Local Environments in Partnership with Small Private Theaters
The Theater Hosting Project for artist residencies at theater venues. Producing a database of small
private theaters nationwide. Surveying new approaches among theaters as regional cultural bases.
Organizing the sixth conference of the Smaller Theatre Initiative.
April 2023–March 2024
Japan

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https://shogekijo-network.jp/¥2 million
Support for New Projects: 2021–

Open Network for Performing Arts Management / Mariko Tsukaguchi
Lecture Series for the Future of the Performing Arts 2023: Toward Sustainable
Creative Environments
A series of lectures on six topics/themes (theater for infants; performance and aging; brain science;play and the performing arts; the public nature of performing arts archives; the public sphere) withthe aim of examining the roots of creative activities in the performing arts.
September 2023–March 2024
Onlinehttp://onpam.net/?p=5254¥1 million

Japan Center, Pacific Basin Arts Communication / Hiromi Maruoka
YPAM Fringe: Establishment and Actualization of Fringe Society and Fringe Center
Increasing international and community recognition of YPAM Fringe as the largest such fringe
performing arts festival in Japan, and establishing an independent operational structure throughvoluntary participation by members of the public.
April 2023–March 2024
Kanagawa
http://www.parc-jc.org¥2 million

2. Contemporary Theater and Dance: International Projects Support Program
1) International Projects Support ProgramThis program is designed to support long-term international projects by contemporary
Japanese theater or dance artists/companies lasting more than two years until completion.
6 recipients: ¥6.5 million (with use of studio and guest room facilities at Morishita Studio)
Newly Selected Grants

General Incorporated Association Q / Satoko Ichihara
Yoroboshi: The Weakling
A co-production with Theater der Welt 2023, this new adaptation of the bunraku puppet play willbe created in collaboration with actors working in Germany, and toured internationally. In fiscal
2023, it will be staged at the Theater der Welt festival.
April 2023–February 2024
Frankfurt, Tokyo, Hyogo, Kochi, Fukuoka¥1.2 million

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Kyoto International Performing Arts Festival Executive Committee / Fumio Amano
Kyoto Experiment × For What Theatre Juggle & Hide
The project is a collaboration between the festival Kyoto Experiment and the theater group For
What Theatre, featuring Thai-based director Wichaya Artamat. It aims to create new forms ofinternational partnerships for theater projects dealing with political themes.
April 2023–October 2023
Bangkok, Kyoto, online¥1 million

Belle Santos
MOURNING TIME
A collaboration with performance maker Emi Ogura, this mourning-themed project investigatesvarious forms of loss during life and ways for recovering from them, and then creates a fictional
space for audiences to experience their own transformation.
October 2023–November 2023
Tokyo, Kyoto¥800,000
Continuing Grants

Chiharu Shinoda
Research and Creation: RUWATAN and MAYOKE
This is a joint project by the directors Chiharu Shinoda and Nia Agustina exploring amulets andtalismans for warding off misfortune. It references the traditional Javanese wayang puppet plays
as part of ruwatan purification rituals, and aims to create a ritualistic performance.
September 2023–January 2024
Yogyakarta, Tokyo¥1.3 million

shelf Association
The Crossing Text: Between Mystery and Mystical
This is an international project jointly organized by shelf and Lab Teater Ciputat. Building on theirprevious productions (shelf ’s Rintrik, or A Stolen Heart and Lab Teater Ciputat’s version of Sotoba
Komachi), Yasuhito Yano and Bambang Prihadi will create a new theater work together.
May 2023–October 2023
Jakarta, Tokyo¥1 million

Prayoon for Art Foundation / Wayla Amatathammachad
Parallel Normalities: Empowering Regional Cities with the Performing Arts
This project aims to rediscover and present the unique lifestyles of Loei and Shizuoka and themeaning of living in both regional cities through artistic approaches and encouraging local
residents to draw on their own creativity to express alternative ways of life.
12April 2023–July 2023
Dansai (Thailand), Shizuoka¥1.2 million

2) Artistic Exchange Project Program (Designated Fund Program)Grants and other awards are given to activities and projects by nonprofit organizations outsideof Japan that have an ongoing relationship with The Saison Foundation with the aim ofmaking Japanese culture and art known in their respective countries and areas. (This is a
designated fund program; applications are not publicly invited.)

Asian Cultural Council
Asian Cultural Council Japan Grant Program: ACC Saison Foundation Fellows
This grant supports the thirty-fourth year of the Asian Cultural Council in New York City’s Japan
Grant Program, which awards fellowships to Japanese artists, scholars, and experts who wish to
do creative work, research, or study in the United States, and their American counterparts coming
to Japan. (¥6 million with use of studio and guest room facilities at Morishita Studio)

Japan Society, Inc.
Contemporary Japanese Plays in English Translation Play Reading SeriesThis is the third and final year of a grant for the Japan Society’s Contemporary Japanese Plays in
English Translation Play Reading Series, which began in 2005. The 2023 grant will support a
staged reading of a play written by Aya Takaha, translated into English and directed by an
American theater artist. (¥500,000)

Theater der Welt 2023 Japan Office: Arts Commons Tokyo
Theater der Welt 2023
This grant supports Theater der Welt, held every three years in a different city in Germany andwith Chiaki Soma (Arts Commons Tokyo) as its program director for 2023. (¥1.5 million)

3. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Use of Morishita StudioThis program provides complimentary use of Morishita Studio’s rehearsal facilities for those whohave completed their terms as Saison Fellows II so that they can present the creative results of
their grants. This year supports the creative development of TOUCH—fureru #2 by Co. Ruri Mito.

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3. Contribution Program: Research Grants for Activating the Next Generation of
Artistic Creativity
This grant program was launched in 2020. It supports research and survey activities aiming
to propose policies for activating the next generation of artistic creativity.
2 recipients: ¥1.5 million

Fumi Yokobori
Cultural Rights for Foreign Residents in Japan: Current Conditions and Challenges
With the aim of verbalizing cultural rights for foreigners in Japan, this project surveys nonJapanese residents in Nagata, Kobe, about their interactions with arts and culture, and considers
cultural rights in terms of cultural policy and legal perspectives.
April 2023–March 2024
Hokkaido, Hyogo¥500,000

Kyushu University / Tatsuro Ishibashi, Care-Manebu / Yuichiro Nagatsu
New Support System for Artists through Care Management in the Arts
With a focus on systematized care management in the social welfare field, this project practices
care management for young artists as a social experiment, and thus proposes new support
structures.
April 2023–March 2024
Kyoto
¥1 million

4. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Flight Grants (Japan-Based Applicants)
This program provides grants to those in Japan in immediate need of funds to travel abroad.
Japan-based artists based are eligible to apply for grants through the foundation’s website inJapanese.
¥1 million

5. Contemporary Theater and Dance: Saison Artist in Residence
1. Saison AIR Partnership
In partnership with cultural bodies abroad, the program both invites foreign artists to stay inJapan and sends Japanese artists to participate in artist-in-residence programs outside Japan.
This year, the program continues the exchange project organized with Footscray Community
Arts, an arts center in Melbourne, Australia.

142. Visiting Fellows
In order to expand overseas networks for contemporary theater and dance as well as promotemutual understanding, the foundation invites overseas artists and arts managers expected toplay important roles to visit Japan and stay at Morishita Studio’s guest rooms.

3. Overseas AIR Participants
The foundation sends Japan-based artists to participate in residency programs overseas tobetter understand and discover the circumstances, contexts, and appeals of contemporary
theater and dance outside Japan. It offers Japanese artists expected to play leading futureroles in the performing arts opportunities to take part in foreign AIR schemes with the aim ofgrowing international networks for contemporary theater and dance, and advancing mutual
understanding. The program covers travel costs, per diem, and production costs.

6. Public Relations and Networking Related to the Grant Programs
The foundation undertakes public relations activities to introduce its grant programs, grantrecipients, and their outputs, as well as networking to improve its grant programs

We would like to express our deep gratitude to the following corporations and individuals fortheir support.
Legal Entity Supporters
Saison Asset Management Co., Ltd.
Tokyo Theatres Company, Inc.
Parco Co., Ltd.
Ryohin Keikaku Co., Ltd.
Private Donors
Sachio Ichimura
Shinji Ono
Haruhiro Nakano
Megumi Nakamura
Kensaku Fukui
Mitsuhiro Yoshimoto

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