Asian Performing Arts Camp Open Sharing Session

AN Yi
Dalian (China), Hawaii (United States)

Yi (b. 1992) is an international dance artist, choreographer and educator earned her BFA degree from China’s premier dance conservatory, Beijing Dance Academy. Yi interested in using performative lens to re-read bodily movement, “in-between” performance and beyond. Her scholarly research and choreographic projects have been presented internationally and domestically across the United States, Pacific Island, and China. She received her MFA in Choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and a third-year Ph.D. candidate in Performance Studies at the Department of Theatre at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa.

CHU Man-Ning
Taipei (Taiwan)

Man-Ning (b. 1994) is a writer and a theatre maker based in Taipei. She is a co-founder of a mixed media art group Antinomy Company, and is currently working there as a playwright and a dramaturg. In her creative practices, she focuses on subtlety in relationships. While exploring possibilities in forms and structures, she attempts to embody the poetic nature of time and being in a metaphorical way.

Ulap CHUA Malabon
(The Philippines)

Ulap (b. 1999) is a budding performance-maker, filmmaker, and photographer based in the Philippines. He positions himself and his works based on the spirit of inquiry and collaboration, often executing narratives through optical mediums. He artistically spearheads Parang Kolektib, an artist organization whose goal is to create provocative works that blur the line between stage and screenplay. He also creates art with various organizations such as: SIPA Pilipinas, Concerned Artists of the Philippines, Buklod Sining Organization, and Sining-Lahi Polyrepertory.

Arthur DE OLIVEIRA
Tokyo (Japan)

Arthur (b. 1996) is a poet, filmmaker, theater practitioner, and artist born in Limeira, Brazil and raised in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. His works reimagine traces of immigration through material and the body by transforming materiality into language that speaks to the body first, like the multicultural environment he was raised in. Arthur is currently based in Tokyo, Japan, where he is pursuing an MFA at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Aaron Kaiser GARCIA
Tacloban (The Philippines)

Aaron (b.1998) is a performer, artist-manager, and performance maker. He has represented the Philippines in several international festivals in Vietnam, Taiwan, Japan, and China, and conducted several workshops in the Philippines. He was also the youngest festival project manager for Karnabal Festival: Performance and Social Innovation PerYaKToi (2016) and Edukasyon Artist Residency (2017). An alumnus of Intercultural Theatre Institute (Singapore) and Folk Dance Program at the Philippine High School for the Arts.

Jeth LEANG
Penang (Malaysia)

Jeth (b. 1989) is a choreographer and dancer. He graduated from Nanyang Academy Of Fine Art, Singapore, and then furthered his research in Dance in Art, The Netherlands. His creations wanted to create social awareness of environmental, climate, social and health issues through his choreography, such as Life, Food & Health. He currently focuses on ‘Revisit, Reinterpret, and Recreate’ tradition or classical into contemporary work.

MASUMI Kayo
Tokyo (Japan)

Kayo (b. 1994) is a multi-hyphenate theater artist based in Tokyo. They graduated from Waseda University, School of Law. As a playwright, director, actor, leader of Hate to Cheek, and member of Seinendan, they illuminate under-acknowledged social issues of discrimination against refugees, women, and LGBTQ community in Japan through their theatrical works by using extreme and absurd plotlines influenced by Japanese manga and anime culture. Their plays are fueled by their rage against unjust social system.

tsu-tsu
Tokyo, Lake Kawaguchiko (Japan)

筒 | tsu-tsu (b. 1997), is a documentary actor based in Tokyo and Lake Kawaguchiko. Using the physical sensation of "tsutsu," it means tube in Japanese, which they have acquired from Japanese dance training since infancy, they have developed a project using acting and urban space. They organize an artist-run residency F/Actory in Tokyo (2018 – present). Conducted research on autonomous communities in 10 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North America as part of the MEXT Tobitate program (2019 ​​– 21). Kuma Foundation Creator Scholarship (2021).

YAMAGUCHI Keiko
Kyoto (Japan)

Kyoto-based actor. In 2011, she started her own theatre group BRDG in order to create performances based on fieldwork and interviews with people living in Kyoto. BRDG focuses on Kyoto as a multicultural city as well as exploring the act of interpreting in performance. Collaborating with Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) and young people in both Japan and Philippines, she presented a performance “Fureru~Haplos” in February, and livestreamed an online piece “HELLO” in December 2020. As an actor, she appeared in performances of Yukichi Matsumoto, marebito theatre company, shitatame and ricca ricca*festa (Okinawa) and so on. YAMAGUCHI Keiko was an Asia Fellow 2017 and currently a member of Seinendan. She was a participant in the APAF2020 Lab and took part in Asian Performing Arts Camp 2021 as co-facilitator. She also works at a community cafe in Kyoto, broadcasting a multilingual radio programme and sometimes works as a fake Maiko at NPO Swing.

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James Harvey ESTRADA
Rizal (The Philippines)

James Harvey ESTRADA (b. 1986) is a theatre, performance, and film maker. His works include: Hear, Here!, which was created to advocate for, and empower, the Deaf community; Reign-Bow, a piece of drag-vocacy reducing the stigma surrounding HIV; and Maikling Dasal, Mahabang Gabi, a play on the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers. He is the Artistic Director of The Scenius Pro., a contemporary performance company based in Manila, and the Media Head/Director of Artists On Q, an online platform for documenting and creating during the coronavirus pandemic. Estrada is also a performing arts mentor at the Regional Lead School for the Arts in Angono. He recently presented his work at Virgin Labfest 2020 (lockdown edition), which took place online. He was a participant in the APAF2019 Lab. He was also one of the directorial team of the APAF2020 Exhibition and this work-in-progress piece was developed and performed at Tokyo Festival 2021.

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NAKAMURA Akane (Producer / Representative Director of precog Co., Ltd.)
Tokyo (Japan)

Born in Tokyo in 1979, Akane became involved in performing arts while she was an undergraduate in the College of Art at Nihon University. 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-specific festivals, and execution of programs for interdisciplinary human resource development. 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. precog has produced the works of artists in Japan and other countries, including Toshiki Okada’s chelfitsch and Mikuni Yanaihara’s Nibroll, and handled international tours and co-productions in 70 cities in 30 different countries. In 2009, she established the NPO Drifters International. She proposed and is one of the directors of the Open Network for Performing Arts Management (ON-PAM). She has built up an impressive record of collaboration with other parties, such as The Japan Foundation Asia Center, British Council, Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT), Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and the municipal governments of Kunisaki and Bungo-Takada in Oita Prefecture. Since 2019, Akane has been broadening the activities of precog, as evidenced by its service as the secretariat of the True Colors Festival.Awardee of the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists (development of the arts) in 2022.

LIU Xiaoyi (Director / Artistic Director of Emergency Stairs)
Singapore, Hong Kong

Xiaoyi is considered one of the most promising figures at the forefront of the experimental theatre scene in Asia. He was the recipient of Young Artist Award by the National Arts Council of Singapore in 2016. The artistic director of Emergency Stairs in Singapore and the artist-in-residence at Zuni Icosahedron in Hong Kong, Xiaoyi was involved in over 70 theatre productions as a curator, a director, a playwright, and an actor over the past two decades. In 2018, Xiaoyi started a new project, No More Theatre, to develop collaboration between digital technology and arts. Xiaoyi has also been actively promoting dialogues and creation across cultural and geographical lines over the past decade. Since 2017, he curates the annual Southernmost Project which brings prominent and established traditional and contemporary artists from the region together. Xiaoyi keeps a keen eye on the development of art talents in Singapore and the Asia Pacific region. He has started and helmed the Emergency Academy, which is designed as an incubation programme for promising young cultural leaders and has attracted a total of 40 artists from 16 cities in its two editions.