スピード・ネットワーキングSpeed Networking

Tang Fu Kuen is the current Artistic Director of Taipei Arts Festival (TAF) which presents its 20th edition in Aug 2018, managed by the festival team at Taipei Performing Arts Center (TPAC). TAF is a contemporary cross-genre platform which unfolds across the city in multiple venues. It seeks respectful collaborations and co-productions between local and international artists through research process and exchange, offering visions towards the unexpected future.

Born in Tokyo in 1965. Masayoshi is the chief producer at Toyohashi Arts Theatre PLAT. He started getting involved in theatre at Tokyo Metropolitan University, and launched a theatre company after his graduation. He had worked in Setagaya Public Theatre between April 1998 and March 2012. He managed the areas of publicity, facility control, production, technical field and curation. He became a staff member at Toyohashi Cultural Foundation in April 2012, and works as an art and culture producer since last year at Toyohashi Arts Theatre PLAT which opened in April 2013.

Anikó Rácz is the international relations officer of SÍN Arts and Culture Center – a Budapest-based production house for the support of dance artists. SÍN has a wide range of international activities, such as coproductions, presentations and long-term professional partnerships. She is the co-programmer and producer of the dance and theatre venue of Sziget Festival in Budapest, has been head of coordination of the 2015 and 2017 editions of dunaPart – platform of Hungarian Contemporary Performing Arts. She is the member of the advisory board of the international network IETM, in 2018 she is the mentor of the dance management training programme of Werk Academy, Budapest.

Po-Chieh Chen currently serves as Programming Associate at the National Performing Arts Center – National Taichung Theatre (NTT). Chen is an arts producer with extensive experience in performing arts production, festival, cultural event and international collaboration. Chen has worked with Cloud Gate 2 (Cloud Gate Culture and Arts Foundation) and one of Taiwan’s most important platform organization – Performing Arts Alliance (PAA) where she established significant international development initiative – Taiwan Performing Arts Connection during her service at PAA. In 2015, Chen was invited to join the National Taichung Theater to participate in the curatorial development and project operations. She is also the board member of Taiwan’s professional performing arts managers association – Performing Arts Development Network Association (PANDA) since 2015.

Jacob is CEO in Lado BE, an entertainment business company in Mexico, he represents national and international artists; produces theater, cultural festivals in partnership with governments and concerts. Represents in partnership to “Guadalajara Roxy,” a Music & Gastronomic Festival with an attendace of 22,000 people with a successful first edition that comprise a world class line up including Morrisey, Empire of the Sun, James and 14 more bands. Loves his job and is a happy guy.

Hartley Kemp is Artistic Director of C venues, the home of the largest independent theatre programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking place in August each year. He also works internationally as a lighting designer and theatre consultant. C creates and curates multiple temporary venues at the Fringe each year. We have performance spaces of all shapes and sizes from 20-220 seats, including installation and found spaces as well as fully-fitted theatres and studios. C programmes across all artforms. International work forms a key part of our programme. Our season sees over 200 shows and events take place at our venues over the four-week Fringe. We are looking for the brightest and best pieces to showcase. Work coming to Edinburgh needs to be ready to self-produce.

Yokohama Noh Theater is an arts center for Japanese classical performing arts that has been known for its producing quality and ability. It has been drawing attentions as a unique Noh theater that not only presents Noh and other Japanese classical performing arts but also produces new works through international collaboration. The Theater co-produced SAYUSA, a new creation of contemporary dance and Noh musical accompaniment, with Japan Society in New York in 2017, and manages a Japan-Taiwan collaboration of Kunqu Opera and Nihon Buyo in 2018.

As the Artistic Director of New York’s prestigious Japan Society, which is the largest non-profit organization in America dedicated to enhancing relations between the U.S. and Japan, Yoko Shioya is responsible for programming the Society’s entire Performing Arts season and overseeing the Film Program. In addition to presenting and organizing tours for Japanese artists, she has also expanded the Society’s commissioning program to include opera, interdisciplinary and collaborative projects that heavily involve artists in New York. She has served as a committee member and juror for the Bessie Awards, the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, and the Toyota Choreography Awards; and as an expert on the performing arts’ scene in both countries, she has regularly contributed to Asahi newspaper among other publications.

Born in Hyogo in 1979. After working as a coordinator at Tokyo Wonder Site, an artist-in-residence facility for contemporary art, and Festival/Tokyo, an international performing arts festival, he has been working on selection of resident artists and yearly programs of Kinosaki International Arts Center, an artist-in-residence facility focusing on performing arts in Toyooka, Hyogo as the program director since 2015, planning for a loose art network in the North Kinki region. A project member of marebito theatre company.

Tulleah is a curator and producer with an interest in interdisciplinary and experimental artistic practices. She works as the Program Manager at Performance Space in Sydney, producing the annual Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art that brings together independent work from across the Asia Pacific. Performance Space enables artists to create diverse, ambitious and provocative new works and presents the cutting-edge of contemporary practice. Independently she has worked extensively with emerging artists and art forms; as a director of artist-run initiative Firstdraft, as a director of Critical Animals creative research symposium and as managing editor of the 2016 SafARI Festival writing program.

Passant Elbadrawy is the Program Officer of Tamasi Performing Arts Collective, a consortium of 11 artistic organizations working in Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in English Language and Literature from Cairo University, Passant worked as a writer and stage manager with feminist storytelling group “Ana Elhekaya” (I Am the Story). Since 2014, she has been working in the cultural development field and arts management. She is also a fundraiser and translator with a strong belief that arts is not only a means of entertainment, but also a tool for raising awareness and making social change.

She was born in Gwangju in South Korea in 1978. She majored in British and American dramas in graduate school in Chonnam National University, and then studied on theatre studies in graduate school in Korea National University of Arts. She has written a lot of articles related to performances and theatres. She has worked as a dramaturg with young generation art groupes, especially in ‘Company Creative VaQi’ and ‘Seoul Marginal Festival’. She is interested in Interdisplinary arts.

ricca ricca*festa is an annual international performing arts festival for children, young people and families which takes place in Okinawa at the end of July. The festival presents 20-30 productions from Japan and abroad over a week and also organises co-productions and meeting programmes for professionals. Based in Tokyo, Nao is mainly in charge of the festival’s international programmes, co-productions and networking.

Kathy Hong is currently Director of Marketing and Communications at National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts (Weiwuying), and sits on the board of Taiwan’s arts managers association, the Performing Arts Network Development Association (PANDA). Hong is a senior arts manager with extensive experiences in theatre and international collaborations. She has served as independent producer and marketing professional for prominent groups and artists in contemporary theatre, dance, children’s theatre, and traditional and modern music fields, those include Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, the Triennial International Percussion Festival (TIPC), Taipei Arts Festivals, Shakespeare’s Wild Sisters Group. Independent production, Walk Faster for Taipei Arts Festival received Taishin Arts Award’s “Top 10 Productions of 2007.” She stepped down from Executive Director at OISTAT – International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians in 2015 to join Weiwuying.

Moved to Germany in 1996 and graduated from Ruhr University Bochum. A freelance communicator specializing in interpretation / translation and coordination / management of cultural projects. She has been co-curating an experimental performing arts program “NIPPON PERFORMANCE NIGHT” with Kathrin Tiedemann, the artistic and managing director of Forum Freies Theater (FFT), a production house / venue in the free scene of Düsseldorf, since 2013, and among the Japanese artists whom she has invited to the program are chelfitsch, Zan Yamashita, Kukangendai, Norimizu Ameya and dracom.

Working with Yokohama Arts Foundation since 2011 after engaging in the improvement of creative environment for theatre and dance including the establishment of Steep Slope Studio, he has been in charge of project and facility management mainly at Yokohama Red Brick Warehouse No. 1. Since 2017, he has also been working on a grant program for training of young artists and for establishment of bases for activities at Arts Commission Yokohama.

Graduated from the Science of Design, Musashino Art University. She started her career as a theatre producer of reset-N in 2003. While working as an assistant manager at a commercial theatre from 2003–2006, She produced several performances and managed tours inside Japan and international exchange projects. Since 2007, A staff member at Art Network Japan. In the year of 2007–2012, she took part in the establishment of Kawasaki Art Center and focused on the various projects for contemporary dance and theatre and for young theater artists. A production co-ordinator since 2012 and the deputy director since 2015 at Festival/Tokyo.

While working as a banker, he organized screenings of independent films for more than 15 years. In 1994 he became an art coordinator at the Museum of Art, Kochi and in 1996 the director of cultural planning at Kochi Prefectural Cultural Foundation. He has organized more than 200 film, theatre, dance and music projects in the 399-seat hall, courtyard and entrance hall of the Museum. He has also produced a film Born to be Baby, video The Body of Tosa-Washi Paper and music CD The Scene of Shore. In April 2006 he became the vice director and in April 2007 the director of the Museum.

Ophelia Jiadai Huang works as Head of International in Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre (SDAC) and Programme Director of ACT Shanghai International Theatre Festival, which annually presents international performing arts at multiple venues under SDAC management, including Shanghai International Dance Centre and 1933 Micro Theatre. Ophelia is an experienced arts manager in international cultural collaboration and cultural policy in China. Her previous work experience includes arts journalism, Artist Links, a pioneer project of artistic exchange between China and England, Royal Shakespeare Company and British Council. Ophelia also maintains her own creative practice as an independent dramaturg and performance artist.

Born in Tokyo in 1953, Hiroshi Takahagi graduated from the Faculty of Letters, the University of Tokyo. He was one of the founder members of Yume no Yumin Sha (Dreaming Playing Sleeping Company). He is a former manager of the Panasonic Globe Theatre, a former general producer at the Setagaya Public Theatre, and currently the vice director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre and also a guest professor at Tama Art University and a member of an advisory council for cultural policy at Agency for Cultural Affairs. He has published several books including Boku To Engeki To Yume no Yumin Sha (published by Nikkei Publishing Inc.).

Norman Armour is a Vancouver-based curator, director, actor and interdisciplinary artist. Since graduating from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts in 1986, he has collaborated over 100 projects for the stage and other media. He is artistic & executive director of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, having co-founded the Festival in 2003. An annual, three-week, mid-winter festival, PuSh engages audiences and artists with adventurous contemporary performance, while promoting cultural exchange and development. Through creative residencies, commissions and industry-focused initiatives, PuSh also looks to play a larger role in the evolution of new creative communities and aesthetics — in Canada and abroad.

Lomorpich Rithy, aka Yoki Cöcö, an independent filmmaker, a young cultural innovator, is a founder of Plerng Kob (meaning campfire), a collaboration community, a dynamic young group of individuals passionate about the arts. Plerng Kob founded Bonn Phum (Village Festival), a folklore festival showcasing Cambodian culture which will take place in Kandal Village, 10 km south of Phnom Penh. This year will be Yoki’s 4th festival after a very successful first and second year welcomed over 30,000 visitors each year.

Hannah Firth is Director of Programme at Chapter, an international multi-artform arts centre based in Cardiff. She is responsible for overall artistic direction across the visual and live arts, film, dance and music programmes. Hannah leads on the curation of Experimentica: Chapter’s Annual Festival of Live Art. Now in its 17th year Experimentica presents five days of genre-defying experimental arts from Wales and across the world. In 2017 Hannah was Curator for Wales in Venice, presenting 'James Richards: Music for the gift' at the 57th Venice Biennale of Art. The exhibition tours the UK in 2018-19. 

Richard is the Artistic Director of the Belfast International Arts Festival, Ireland’s leading annual event of contemporary arts and ideas from across the globe. Previous posts include Commissioner for the China–Ireland Cultural Exchange Programme; Managing Director of the Abbey Theatre, Dublin (Ireland’s National Theatre) and General Manager of Hampstead Theatre, London. He has transferred, produced and co-produced 18 productions into London’s West End including Burn This by Lanford Wilson, Dead Funny by Terry Johnson and Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me by Frank McGuinness (also Broadway, New York). He is a member of the Board of Directors of Dance Ireland.

Dramaturg of SPAC-Shizuoka Performing Arts Center, in charge of international exchanges. Programmer of World Theatre Festival Shizuoka. Programmer of Tokyo Festival. Board member of ON-PAM (Open Network for Performing Arts Managers). Part-time lecturer at Gakushuin University (Tokyo) and University of Shizuoka. Born in Chiba, Japan in 1977. Ph. D. in Theatre Studies at l’Université Paris X in 2008 (Ph. D. dissertation: La grâce et l'art du comédien. Conditions théoriques de l'exclusion de la dance et du chant dans le théâtre des Modernes). Since 2007, Yoshiji is working mainly for international program of theatre festival, called actually "World Theatre Festival Shizuoka", organized annually in April-May by SPAC-Shizuoka Performing Arts Center. Member of APP (Asian Producers' Platform) since 2014. Founding member of Dramaturg / Japan (since 2015). Stayed in NYC as grantee of Asian Cultural Council and visiting scholar at The Segal Theatre Center, CUNY (City University of New York Graduate Center), on 2016. Since 2017, he is working also for Tokyo Festival as programmer.

Agnieszka Sosnowska, PhD is a curator at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw and researcher. She teaches in the Institute of Polish Culture (University of Warsaw), where she defended her PhD dissertation. She is interested in art practices at the intersection of visual and performing arts, as well as modern theories of theater, performativity, and ephemerality. Selected curatorial work includes “A Room and a Half” exhibition by Laura Lima at the Ujazdowski Castle CCA, the “Let’s Dance exhibition” and performance project in the Art Station Foundation by Grażyna Kulczyk, Poznań (co-curated with Joanna Leśnierowska and Tomasz Plata, 2015); “Vanishing Point” exhibition in Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel (2014); Polish-Swiss exhibition project “Learning from Warsaw” (co-curated with Nele Dechmann and Nico Ruffo, 2014) in Museum Baerengasse, Zurich and several performance projects as “PTV.Performance TV” or “Performance Day.”

Sven Birkeland is the artistic and managing director of BIT Teatergarasjen, the dance biennial Oktoberdans and the theatre biennial Meteor. Birkeland curates programs for festivals, theatres, museums and galleries in Norway and abroad, and is a member of Arts Council Norway. Birkeland lives and works from his base in Bergen. Before working within the art field he did studies at the University of Stavanger (culture, film, sociology) and the University of Bergen (theatre science).

Santhosh Manohar joined Prakriti Foundation in 2012. He holds a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering and a post-graduate degree in Management (MBA). His passion and keen interest in arts were instrumental in him joining Prakriti Foundation. Santhosh is responsible for artist management, logistics, budgets, marketing and communication design for all the four main festivals of the foundation. His organisation and problem-solving skills have helped him become the management head for two main festivals of the foundation, India’s only one contemporary arts festival — The Park’s New Festival and Festival of Sacred Music on the bank of River Cauvery. He has been part of all the major tours organised by the foundation which includes Akram Khan Company’s Gnosis and Torobaka and Avant Garde Dance Company’s Black Album.

While studying at the Faculty of Sustainability Studies of Hosei University, he assisted of Nishi-Sugamo Arts Factory since its establishment. And he assisted stage directors, managers and directors of various performances. After having worked in ST Spot and Steep Slope Studio, in April 2016 he is incumbent position. In addition to taking charge of the emerging artist support program "Saka-Agari Scholarship", he plans and produces performances, workshops and so on. Vice President of NPO ST Spot Yokohama.

Jong-Ho Lee is a journalist, dance critic, and festival organizer. He started his career with “Courrier de la Corée,” a French weekly published in Korea, and worked for one of the major mass media companies in Korea, Yonhap News Agency for about 30 years. During his career, he was assigned to Brussels as a correspondent, was a reporter for social affairs and international news, and presided at the desk of culture. Finally, he managed the entire company as the vice president. Since 1980, Mr. Lee has been an active dance critic and columnist publishing dance reviews, and reports of international festivals and cultural policies. He established Seoul Section of the Int’l Dance Council, CID-UNESCO in 1996 and launched Seoul International Dance Festival (a.k.a. SIDance) in 1998. Since its inception, SIDance has been playing a leading role of “defining international festival” in Korea and Asia. In particular, SIDance festival has been highly acclaimed for its programs focusing on world’s regional dance trends and cultural diversity. One of his best achievements is to build networks with festivals and theaters in various continents, producing over 30 collaborative dance pieces. Furthermore, he has introduced Korean dancers, choreographers and troops to international stages of over 40 countries promoting about 130 productions.

Paul has been Chief Executive of National Dance Company Wales since February 2015. In that time he has worked to tour to new places, diversify its programme whilst developing new projects and participation opportunities. Prior to this role, Paul was Director of Creative Programmes at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and from 2008 to 2012 he was the West Midlands Creative Programmer for London 2012, commissioning dance participation and performance programmes, with audiences and participants totalling three million. For twenty years he worked in cultural marketing and audience development – for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Warwick Arts Centre and as Chief Executive of Audiences Central, the cultural audience development agency for the West Midlands. In his role at NDCWales he aims to inspire existing and new audiences with the power of dance, creating dance in new places and contexts, and taking superb dance made in Wales to the rest of the world.

Kully took up post as Artistic Director of National Theatre Wales in May 2016. From 2012-2016 she was director of Cast in Doncaster, responsible for the artistic and strategic vision for the new venue. Prior to that she was an Independent Theatre Director and Arts Consultant for several years undertaking a diverse range of creative and cultural projects. Kully has previously led Contact Theatre, Manchester, Leicester Haymarket Theatre, Theatre Writing Partnership, and Red Ladder Theatre Company, Leeds as Artistic Director and CEO. She has extensive experience of commissioning, producing and directing work nationally and internationally.