Fumiyo Ikeda / Un Yamada (BE/JP)

Born in 1962 in Osaka, Japan, Fumiyo Ikeda lives in Brussels. In 1979, she entered Maurice Béjart's dance school MUDRA, where she met Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and in 1983 joined the recently founded company Rosas. Between 1983 and 2008 she contributed to the creation of and danced in almost all of Rosas’ productions and appeared in several of the company’s films and videos. Alongside her activity within Rosas, Fumiyo Ikeda has also worked with Steve Paxton, Needcompany, Josse De Pauw and Tom Jansen. She has participated in several films and theatre plays. In 2007 she created “Nine Finger” with Benjamin Verdonck and Alain Platel, which was selected for the Festival d’Avignon and appeared in “in pieces”, a collaboration with the British playwright and director Tim Etchells (Forced Entertainment) that premiered in 2009. She also performed in “Live and Times”, Episode 2 by Nature Theater of Oklahoma (2010).

Un Yamada was born in 1969 in Tochigi, Japan. She started her career as a choreographer in 1996. She finds inspiration and motifs in everyday gestures and actions, and blends them with her unique sense of humour and wit. Un Yamada founded her own company Co. Yamada Un in 2002, which has since then toured extensively in Japan and internationally. She regularly works together with musicians and develops choreographies for theatre performances and operas. Her unique stage presence – energetic and feeble at the same time – and her witty concepts have lead to collaborations not only with fellow dancers and choreographers but also with mathematicians and physicists, for instance. This is not Un Yamada’s first collaboration with a dancer / choreographer residing in Brussels. In 2007, she worked with Yukiko Shinozaki (deepblue) to create “hibi” (meaning “everyday” as well as “crack” in Japanese), which was presented at Vooruit, Kaaitheater, and at Stuk in Belgium and at Kichijoji Theater in Tokyo.

yamadaun.jp