Shoko KASHIMA

Shoko Kashima is a dancer, impro­viser, pho­tog­ra­pher and teacher Tokyo. She received her Mas­ter of Arts in Dance Edu­ca­tion from Ochan­o­mizu Uni­ver­sity in Tokyo and founded the dance com­pany ZIN­ZOLIN in 1996. In 2000 she cre­ated the part­ner­ship “Duo unit” with Ryoko Sug­i­moto, while also being awarded a one year schol­ar­ship from the Japan­ese Gov­ern­ment Over­seas Study Pro­gram for Artists to study dance in New York. Their works were selected for per­for­mance by Joyce SOHO Presents, DUMBO Fes­ti­val, The Brook­lyn Museum of Art and The Cool NY 2004 Dance Fes­ti­val in NY. After return­ing to Japan, Shoko began work­ing with Chico Kat­sube as a mem­ber — and now co-​director — of Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion Group C.I.co. In 2006, She founded the CIFJ (Con­tact Impro­vi­sa­tion Fes­ti­val Japan) with Chico and con­tin­ues to orga­nize and cre­ate the inter­na­tional CI fes­ti­val to exchange cul­ture, peo­ple, essence of CI in Japan. She has been teach­ing CI at kinder­gartens, ele­men­tary schools, uni­ver­si­ties, pub­lic the­aters and muse­ums. She is a seed mem­ber of AIAE, Korea.

Shoko is also a well-​known pho­tog­ra­pher. In 2012, she moved to Kagoshima with Chico Kat­sube to start activ­i­ties and cul­ti­vate arts com­mu­nity in sparsely pop­u­lated area. She orga­nized “i-​Dance Japan” in Kagoshima in 2013.