Photographer and critic, born in 1960. Professor at Tama Art University, Department of Information Design, and member of the Institute for Art Anthropology. A specialist in visual anthropology, his activities connect various types of media, including photography, text, and video installation. Has worked with, published on and curated themes such as memory, movement, and the masses, and directed international exhibitions in both Japan and elsewhere. Served as the commissioner of the Japanese pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2007 and as Artistic Director of the Aichi Triennale2016.

Daisuke Muto is Associate Professor of Dance Studies and Aesthetics at Gunma Prefectural Women’s University, and also an independent dance critic and a choreographer. His research interests are global history of dance with a focus on the 20th-century Asia, and theory of choreography. He is the co-author of Choreography and Corporeality, 2016, and History of Ballet and Dance(in Japanese), 2012. His papers include “What Happens When Contemporary Artists Learn Folk Performing Arts” in Bulletin of Gunma Prefectural Women’s University, No.38, 2017, and “Stepping into Ecology of a Dance” in Bulletin of Gunma Prefectural Women’s University, No.39, 2018. Muto is the program director for international exchange division at Sanriku International Arts Festival.      

Graduated Tama Art University. After working in the Curatorial Department of Setagaya Art Museum, he worked on the planning and production of music and performing arts as well as record label management at Conversation & Company Co., Ltd. Since 2001, he has been involved in the management of the website and magazine realtokyo. At the World Expo held in Aichi Prefecture in 2005, he was in charge of numerous international projects. Associate Director of “Festival/Tokyo” 2011, Producer of “Aichi Triennale” 2013 Performing Arts Section, Director of Main Arena of “Roppongi Art Night” 2014, “International Art Festival Aichi 2022” Performing Arts Section Advisor. Since 2012, he has been involved in the planning and production of domestic and international performing arts as a staff member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Tokyo Metropolitan Theater.

(photo: Ryuji Miyamoto)

Writer, born in 1987. Editor at an online magazine. Attends supposedly hip gigs and other music events to avoid getting stuck in the past, but is never overly enthusiastic about such outings.

Dance & Theater Critic. Previously worked as an editor for Magazine House, Ltd. (Brutus magazine, and books including Anne’s Cradle, the biography of Hanako Muraoka by Eri Muraoka, as well as Shakespeare’s Famous Quotationsby Haruo Nakano, and Ren Osugi‘sGembamon), and currently contributes to various media as a dance and theater critic, continuing to explore the relationship between art and society through all kinds of performing arts from classical to experimental pieces. She has been visiting numerous international festivals since the early 1990s, and also writes art reviews. Member of the International Association of Theatre Critics (AICT/IATC). Research Fellow at the Theatre Museum, Waseda University.

Born 1963 in Tokyo. Started working in radio broadcasting and publishing while still enrolled at Kokugakuin University, Faculty of Letters, before joining FM Yokohama and getting involved in the planning and production of radio programs. As a freelance editor, she has been working for such magazines as Hanakoand Croissant. Since the mid-1990s she has been specializing in Noh and Kyogen in particular, while also engaging in writing, editing and lecturing activities on art/entertainment forms of Higashiyama culture involving tea, Zen, flowers and incense, around ”traditional and contemporary” as a general theme of her work. Publications include Noh no shinseiki(Shogakukan), Shinsakunoh: Kurenaitennyo no sekai(Hakusensha) and Tsuzumi ni ikiru(Tankosha).

Researcher in the field of dance. Graduated from the University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies (Culture and Representation). Ph.D. (Interdisciplinary Cultural Studies). She is currently an assistant professor at the Department of Body Expression and Cinematic Arts, College of Contemporary Psychology, Rikkyo University (fixed term) and a research fellow at The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Waseda University. Her research focuses on Butoh and contemporary dance, with a particular focus on Kazuo Ohno. She is the co-author of The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (2019). In addition to her research activities, she has contributed to theatre reviews such as Theatre Arts, Dance Work, artissue as well as other publications. She has also worked as a dramaturg and performer in theatre company SYAKE-SPEARE and other productions.

Editor and critic born in Amami in 1972. Matsumura became a freelancer in 2009 after working as the editor-in-chief for the Studio Voice and Tokion magazines. He is the author of Zenei Ongaku Nyumon (“Introduction to Avant-garde Music,” published by Ele-king Books), the editor of titles including Sasageru – Haino Keiji no Sekai (“Devotion – The World of Keiji Haino”) and Yamaguchi Fujio – Tengoku no Himatsubushi (“Fujio Yamaguchi – Killing Time in Heaven”), and the supervisor of Ele-king, Bessatsu ele-king and many other publications. He plays bass in the rock band Yuasawan, appearing on records such as Minato, Funami, Sagoshio, and Myaku (all released on the Boid label).

Midori Matsui, a Tokyo-based art critic, has extensively published on contemporary Japanese art in many books and exhibition catalogues including Super Rat: Chim↑Pom(Tokyo, Parco. Co. Ltd, 2012); Ice Cream (London: Phaidon, 2007), Little Boy: the Art of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (Japan Society and Yale University Press, 2005). Her books include: Art in the New World (Tokyo: Asahi Press, 2002); The Door into Summer: The Age of Micropop(, for Art Center Mito, Japan, and Winter Garden: The Exploration of the Micropop Imagination in Contemporary Japanese Art in 2009.

Midori Mitamura has exhibited her spatial artworks widely around the world. Through fieldwork, she structures art installations using various materials such as photos, images, music, language, and found objects. Her artworks metaphorically visualize trails of awkward and endearing emotions drawn from everyone’s lives. Solo Exhibitions “Art & Breakfast Las Palmas de Gran Canaria” 2017 (CAAM – Atlantic Center of Modern Art, Spain), “Green on the Mountain” 2006 (Secession Vienna, Austria), International Art Festival “Aichi Triennale 2016”

Born in Japan. After studying in San Francisco, she moved to Thailand, where she founded the band FUTON with Thai and British friends. The band established itself in the independent music scene and enjoyed popularity especially among students in Bangkok. They toured around Vietnam, Shanghai, Malaysia, Singapore, the UK, France and Germany, and in Tokyo, performed with the likes of Naruyoshi Kikuchi, Maki Nomiya, Buffalo Daughter and Cornelius. Avex released a domestic version of their album. Momoko Motion presently lives in Tokyo, where she does mainly solo live performances as a singer-songwriter. Her single “Fake Food/Suppai Budo” was released in 2017.  www.momokomotion.com

Sayako Mizuta works as a freelance-based curator, project manager and a coordinator for contemporary art exhibitions, festivals. Curated exhibitions: Alterspace -Constantly Changing Temporary Artspace (Asahi Art Square, 2014), Skin & Map: the study of body and sense by four artists (Aichi art center, 2010). She has run Little Barrel project room in Omori, Tokyo. http://littlebarrel.net/

Born in 1980, Yuko Mohri is an artist who eschews a composition-based approach, creating mainly installations and sculptures focused on phenomena that change in response to the surrounding environment and other conditions. In addition to recent solo exhibitions including “Parade (a Drip, a Drop, the End of the Tale)” (Japan House São Paulo, 2021), “SP. by yuko mohri” (Ginza Sony Park, Tokyo, 2020), and “Voluta” (Camden Art Centre, London, 2018), her work has appeared at the 34th São Paulo Biennial, Glasgow International 2021, the 2018 Asia Pacific Triennial (in Brisbane), the 2017 Lyon Biennale, and several other exhibitions around the world. Mohri undertook a residency in the United States as an Asian Cultural Council grantee in 2015, and is set to travel to France in 2022 as laureate of the Institut français Cité internationale des arts 2020. https://www.mohrizm.net/