Chico KATSUBE

Chico Kat­sube is a dance impro­viser, chore­o­g­ra­pher and teacher from Osaka, Japan. She received her B.Ed. and M.A. degrees at the Dance Edu­ca­tion Divi­sion of Ochan­o­mizu Uni­ver­sity in Tokyo, where she stud­ied Mod­ern Dance and Chore­og­ra­phy. From 1990 to 94, she stud­ied and danced in New York City. In 1997, she began Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion activ­ity in Japan under the influ­ence of Nancy Stark Smith.

In 2000, she founded C.I.co., with Makiko Ito. Since then she has been a lead­ing fig­ure in teach­ing, orga­niz­ing and per­form­ing Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion in Tokyo and through­out Japan.

In 2005, 2007 and 2012, she par­tic­i­pated and taught inten­sive work­shops in Con­tact Fes­ti­val in Israel. In the sum­mer of 2006, she taught a work­shop in the Mag­pie Col­lec­tive Work­shop and per­formed with the Mag­pie Music and Dance in Ams­ter­dam. And in 2011, she par­tic­i­pated in Con­tact Fes­ti­val Kuala Lumpur, i– dance Taipei, where she taught and per­formed with Shoko Kashima. And she has been a seed mem­ber of AIAE in South Korea from 2008. In 2008, she founded the CIFJ (Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion Fes­ti­val Japan) and con­tin­ues to orga­nize and cre­ate the inter­na­tional CIfes­ti­val to exchange cul­ture, peo­ple, essence of CI in Japan. Now she is study­ing and inves­ti­gat­ing together impro­vi­sa­tion dance with Shoko Kashima. In 2010, “Chico and Shoko” par­tic­i­pated in ECITE in Fin­land and AIAE in Korea.

She has been a fac­ulty of some uni­ver­si­ties in Tokyo for more than 10 years. In 2012, she moved from Tokyo to Kagoshima. With Shoko Kashima, they focused on explor­ing and inte­grat­ing Asian cul­ture into impro­vi­sa­tion, as well as to estab­lish the art com­mu­nity in the coun­try­side in Kagoshima pre­fec­ture. In 2013, she orga­nized the first “i-​Dance Japan”, Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion Fes­ti­val in Isa-​city