Akane Nakamura
Producer of performing arts
Born in Tokyo in 1979, Akane Nakamura became involved in performingarts while she was an undergraduate in the College of Art at Nihon
University. She founded precog Co., Ltd. in 2006, during her stint as
program director at the NPO ST Spot Yokohama (2004 – 2008), and has
been its representative director since 2008. From 2016 to 2018, shestayed in Bangkok and New York after receiving a grant from the Asian
Cultural Council. She handles tasks in a wide variety of areas, such as
production of the activities of contemporary theater and dance artists
and companies inside and outside Japan, holding of site-specificfestivals, execution of programs for interdisciplinary human resource
development, and operation of a platform distributing video works onlinethat is both barrier-free and multilingual.
Major production activities
Since 2004, she has produced the works of numerous artists andcompanies that are driving Japan's contemporary theater and dance, inJapan and other countries. The list includes chelfitsch & Toshiki Okada,
Nibroll, the Mikuni Yanaihara Project & Mikuni Yanaihara, theAzumahashi Dance Xing, Masako Yasumoto, Norimizu Ameya, Yudai
Kamisato, and Chiharu Shinoda. Nakamura has handled international
tours and co-productions in 70 cities in 30 different countries, and donemuch to introduce Japan's contemporary theater scene to theinternational community since the second half of the 2000s. In October
2009, she established NPO Drifters International together withrepresentative director Kao Kanamori and the architect Teppei Fujiwara.
She is striving to conceive and produce international programs that cut
across fields such as performing arts, fashion, and architecture, andprojects with an inclusive perspective. In the process, she is further
widening the range of her activities. Awardee of the 72nd Minister ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art
Encouragement Prize for New Artists (development of the arts) in 2022.
2011: Produced Contemporary Little Theatres of the World vol.1
Germany in a project of co-curation with the theater HAU Habbel am
Ufer Berlin.

2012 - 2014 : Performing arts program director for the Kunisaki Art
Project and Kunisaki Art Festival (organized by the Kunisaki Art Festival
Executive Committee).
2012 : Produced “Irikuchi Dekuchi” (Entrance Exit) (organized by theKunisaki Art Festival Executive Committee), by Norimizu Ameya andMariko Asabuki.
2012 : Director of Musicity Tokyo (organized by the British Council)
2012 : Produced KAFE9 (organized by NPO Drifters International andthe Kanagawa Arts Theatre KAAT)2016 - 2019 : Produced performances of Pratthana - A Portrait ofPossession collaboration among Toshiki Okada, Uthis Haemamool andYuya Tsukahara (co-organized by the Japan Foundation Asia Center andprecog)*Nominated for the 2020 Yomiuri Theater Award.
2016 : Produced Inuto Imago, an Inujima sound project by Kazuhisa
Uchihashi at the Inujima Performing Arts Program in the SetouchiTriennale 2016. (co-organized by the Fukutake Foundation and precog)
2019 : Associate director and deputy secretary-general of the True
Colors Festival (organized by The Nippon Foundation)2018 - 2020 : Curated and produced Jejak- Tabi Exchange: Wandering
Asian Contemporary Performance2020 : Produced THEATRE for ALL, a high-accessibility video
streaming service *Start of service in March 2021
2021 : Produced the theater-related program Meet the Artists at Mori ArtMuseum, Ichthys by Takayuki Yamamoto, and the community
engagement program Tomohiko Tsujimoto x Koharu Sugawara
Art Camp for under 22, Vol. 7, Human Begin: What Are We Doing
Tomorrow?
2023： General producer of the All-in Film Festival in Karuizawa
2024：Appointed curator (performing arts producer) for the international

art festival Aichi Triennale 2025

Network-building inside and outside Japan
Since 2007, Nakamura has produced numerous international tours,
mainly to Europe and North America, in her work for chelfitsch. The
network she built now has links to more than 70 cities in 30 countries
around the world. In 2016, she relocated to Bangkok after receiving agrant from the Asian Cultural Council, and embarked on research of
performing arts in other Asian countries during her stay, which ended in
2018. The Jejak-Tabi Exchange: Wandering Asian Contemporary
Performance and other programs also evidence the importance she
attaches to projects linking Japan with other Asian countries. She
proposed and is one of the directors of the Open Network for Performing
Arts Management (ON-PAM). This is a membership-based national andinternational network of people involved in the task of connecting artists
and art groups with audiences.

Accessibility programs
Her participation in the planning for the True Colors Festival organizedby the Nippon Foundation in 2019 led Nakamura to add accessibility andinclusion to the themes of her activities. All the Sex I’ve Ever Had, by
Mammalian Diving Reflex and Darren O’Donnell, was part of the official
program of this festival. It is a participation-oriented project by a group of
Canadian artists, and this was the first production and performance of
the Japanese original edition. The performance also provided highaccessibility in various ways for the audience and created connections
among people with differing backgrounds. In October 2020, Nakamura
produced THEATRE for ALL as a precog project. This is an online
theatre platform through which people can view all sorts of videos infields including theater, dance, movies, and media arts, in a highly
accessibile and multilingual format. This platform was given high ratingsas an approach to improving access to the arts for persons withdisabilities, heightening understanding of accessibility by artists, andenabling artists to explore modes of expression from new perspectives.
It was selected for the GOOD DESIGN Award in fiscal 2021.

Projects for human resource development
Nakamura held the Drifters Summer School program, which is based inYokohama, over the years 2010 - 2013. She produced a humanresource development program in the areas of production, dance,architecture, fashion, and domains of cross-genre expression. She alsoserved as a part-time instructor in the Nihon University College of Art
from 2011 to the present. In addition, she was involved in thedevelopment and examination of Conneling Study together withworkshop designer Takashi Usui for a period of three years beginning in2019. This is an art appreciation project that applies the viewing ofperformances for a learning experience. In 2020, she served asco-director of Re / Creation, a school for the conception, planning, andpublicizing of interdisciplinary projects. This program is sited in Shibuya
QWS, a members-only facility on the 15th floor of SHIBUYA SCRAMBLE
SQUARE, and brings together creators, business persons, artists, andother people. In 2021, Nakamura launched THEATRE for ALL Learning,a project for the diffusion of education about THEATRE for ALL. In thisproject, she strove to develop inclusive workshops with sign language
interpretation, textual support, and other aids. Besides holding
expression- and dialogue-type workshops, she conducted programs todevelop workshop designers and facilitators. She remains active inefforts to increase the ranks of people who have the skills needed tocreate venues where all kinds of persons can confidently take part indialogue and creation revolving around questions without any rightanswers, and have the ability to manage workshops. She is also
involved in a program launched by the Agency for Cultural Affairs fordevelopment of human resources with disabilities.

Site-specific approaches
In 2012, she helped to organize the Sumidagawa Parade, whichfeatured 100 cheerleaders, along the Sumida River in collaboration withthe Tokyo Metropolitan Government. Over the years 2012 - 2014, she
was performance program director for the Kunisaki Art Festival(co-sponsored by Oita Prefectural Government and the governments ofthe cities of Kunisaki and Bungotakada). She also produced “Irikuchi
Dekuchi” (Entrance Exit), a 12-hour bus-tour work that became one of
the signature works of Norimizu Ameya and Mariko Asabuki. In addition,
she produced Inujima Sound Project Inuto Imago, a collaborative pieceby Kazuhisa Uchihashi and the Indonesian musical unit Senyawa, in theSetouchi Triennale 2016. The project included the opening of aneponymous temporary venue that holds live performances once a monthon the island of Inujima, and hosts sessions and workshops with all sorts

of musicians from other Asian countries. As the above evidences,
Nakamura is energetically promoting activities rooted in local areas.
Space management
In a project of co-production with Mujinto Production and Azumabashi
Dance Xing, she established SNAC (2010 - 2013), a place for socializing
to breed new value, in a downtown district of Tokyo. She opened
PUNTO PRECOG, a creative space which is likewise a site for the birthof new projects, in the city of Beppu, Oita Prefecture, in May 2012.
Nakamura opened the free space Yamabuki Factory in what had been aprinting factory in Yamabuki-cho, a district in Tokyo's Shinjuku Ward. Sheoffers this space for use as a studio for theater and dance performancesand rehearsals, and also holds workshop programs there.