We are pleased to announce the following program by director/choreographer Romance Hashimoto, which has been held since September of the same year at the first floor space of Dance Base Yokohama, which opened in August 2025.

Free Showing Free showing viewing (currently accepting applications)

Free Workshop (Registration Closed)

Creation Workshop (Registration Closed)

▶ Click here for more information about DaBY 1st floor studio.

Overview

Yokohama is a complex intersection of many different contexts. There, histories of oppression and genocide, histories of dance and fashion, and histories of various people who have crossed the sea are woven into each other. That is where the dance house is located. There is a place where each person’s body and the history of that body itself, as their own or as shaped by society, can meet again and try to change. I see tremendous potential in this.

DaBY is almost embraced by Yokohama Bay. It has been a gateway for people and things to meet for hundreds of years, and we want this project to be a search for what we should look for, what we are compelled to talk about, and what we want to prove together, based on the touch of our own bodies and the history of this place.

No previous dance or performance experience is required to participate in the Creation Workshop. It will not be something where everyone does the same thing exactly together. Some may want intensity, some may need stillness. I would like to try to keep these different gradations, and to try to follow the threads and weave them together.

Rom Hashimoto

Free Workshop

Participation fee

free

Date

Saturday, September 20, 14:00-16:00
Theme: freeing your body in different ways
Content: stretching, trying different directions and balances, moving your body to music
Target: for exercise beginners and inexperienced dancers

Saturday, September 27, 14:00-16:00
Theme: knowing and controlling your body
Content: stretching and training, de-ballet-centric body manipulation, choreography
Target: for people with exercise and dance experience

Creation Workshop

Participation fee

(1) All 6 sessions of WS + showing performance: ¥10,000
(2) All 6 sessions of WS (without showing performance): ¥10,000
(3) Single session of WS (without showing performance): ¥2,000

Please choose one of the three participation options above.

Date

October 11 (Sat) 14:00-16:30
Contents: Explanation of Creation / What is Contemporary Dance? / Politics of the body / Choreography

Oct. 25 (Sat) 13:00-17:00
<Kioku in Han, The Massacre of Koreans in Yokohama>
Guest: uhi

November 8 (Sat) 13:00-17:00
〈No Identity, No Identity, Yokohama Chinatown: A Tour of Overseas Chinese People〉
Guest: Qingjian

November 22 (Sat) 13:00-17:00
〈Bread and Roses, Around the Blue Line Zone in Yokohama〉
Guest: Azusa Karai

Saturday, December 13, 13:00-17:00 (open rehearsal/for participants)
Saturday, December 20, 13:00-17:00
Sunday, December 21, 13:00-17:00 (rehearsal/showing)

*On 10/25, 11/8, and 11/22, the first 2 hours will be research and the second 2 hours will be creation.
*Single-show participation is available for the three sessions from October to November 8 (Sat.).
*Only those who participate in all three sessions after November 22 (with or without showing) may participate. *Single-show attendance is not available.
However, if you are unable to attend all 6 sessions, it will not affect your application or participation in the showings. If you plan to be absent, please indicate the date and time in the remarks column.

Creation Workshop Application

Please register through Peatix.

*Registration as a DaBY member (free of charge) is required to apply. Please register in advance here:
*Please note that once tickets have been purchased, they cannot be cancelled, refunded, or changed for any reason by the customer. (Information for participants)
If you need to cancel due to unavoidable circumstances, please contact 必ずcontact@dancebase.yokohamaまでご連絡ください.

Free Showing Viewing

Artist Comments

This project started with a desire to learn more about Yokohama, together with Dance Base Yokohama (DaBY). I then conveyed to DaBY my belief that it is important to trace the context of Yokohama and carefully reconsider the meaning of expression in the “here and now” at a time when various lines of exclusion are being drawn and the footsteps of war seem to be drawing nearer, and I invited guests to participate in the project, which was not originally planned. I also included in this project, which was not originally planned, a walking tour of various former sites and actual locations with invited guests.

Kioku Han no Kioku: The Massacre of Koreans in Yokohama.
〈No Identity: The People of Overseas Chinese in Yokohama’s Chinatown〉
〈Bread and Roses: Yokohama’s Blue Line Zone.

What constitutes a society? And what is its structure? Aren’t there some entities that are hidden and obscured within that structure? In the midst of these questions, we walked around actual places with our guests and used testimonies and documents to learn about the past and present, in line with the above three themes.

The more we walk, the more we know, the less we know how to output this. This was the response of the participants. By learning about various contexts and becoming aware of their own privilege, they become stuck. I think this is a very natural and sincere reaction. Expression, for better or worse, is an influential force, and depending on how it is used, it can be terribly violent. Knowing the danger, we should think about what we can do “here and now. I believe that this process itself is the most important thing in this attempt.

Therefore, this “showing” may not be something that is intended to be “presented” to an audience. I feel that it will be something that “opens” the traces of what each of the participants in this project, with their different backgrounds and thoughts, have known, learned, worried, and tried. I hope that what has been opened will become a new opportunity for someone who comes into contact with it, that this seed will be carried somewhere, and that it will one day grow roots.
I would be happy if you could come and touch this attempt as a seed before it is carried away.

Rom Hashimoto

Participation fee and schedule

Admission: Free

Open Rehearsal: Saturday, December 13, 2025, 13:00-17:00
Showing: Sunday, December 21, 2025, 15:00-16:30 (doors open 14:30)
*The event will last 90 minutes.

Application for Showing Admission

Application Form

Registration as a DaBY member (free of charge) is required to apply. Please register here in advance.

Venue

Dance Base Yokohama 1F
Access here
KITANAKA BRICK&WHITE BRICK North 1F, 5-57-2 Kitanaka-dori, Naka-ku, Yokohama, Kanagawa
Bashamichi Station, Minatomirai Line Exit 2a “Yokohama Kitanaka Knot” direct connection

Venue Facilities

• Changing space: If you need to change your clothes, please use the changing space in the studio on the 3rd floor.
• All-gender to ilets and showers: There are all-gender toilets and shower rooms on the third floor that anyone can use.
• Multipurpose Restroom: There is a wheelchair accessible multipurpose restroom next to the supermarket across from the venue.

*We also provide support for visitors in wheelchairs and those who need information security.
If you need any support, please contact us at the following e-mail address:
contact@dancebase.yokohama
[e.g.] Written communication support for deaf or hard of hearing people, cases of blind people attending with caregivers, etc.

Guest Profile

Han’s Kioku: The Massacre of Koreans in Yokohama〉Saturday, October 25, 13:00-17:00

Guest: uhi
Born in Tokyo, Japan in 1994. Attended Korean and Korean schools. She is a queer who feels the presence of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where her mother once wanted to “return home”, and the United States, which her father longed for, in the shadows. Non-binary. She is involved in the immigration control movement and the passing on of the memory of the massacre of Koreans in the Great Kanto Earthquake. Her projects include “Hyakunen,” the Hosenka 100th Anniversary Memorial Ceremony Executive Committee, and “Hyakubi + (a project to reconsider the art scene in Chiba Prefecture on the 100th anniversary of the massacre of Koreans in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and to explore its ideal state).


<No-Identity: The Overseas Chinese People of Yokohama Chinatown> Saturday, November 8, 13:00-17:00

Guest: Blue Sword
Organizer of Body Club/Dancer/Workshop creator. Born in Yokohama as an overseas Chinese. After graduating from Nihon University College of Art, she joined Dance Theatro 21 and performed on the company’s stage. Later, founded the dance company Fonte (later fonte project) and worked on stage before disbanding. After studying in Europe for a year, he resumed his activities and participated in various projects. Currently, she is developing her own ice-breaker and bodywork programs to relieve tension at universities and other educational institutions, while also organizing various programs for the Body Department.


Bread, Roses, and the Blue Line in Yokohama〉Saturday, November 22, 13:00-17:00

Guest: Azusa Karai
Doctoral student at Ochanomizu University. She specializes in gender/sexuality and politics, and commercial sex. Her research interests include queer theory, feminist theory, power and violence, discrimination and exclusion, and colonialist violence. In addition to her research activities, she has participated in a nationwide student volunteer action against tuition hikes and in activities to remember and pass on the massacre of Koreans during the Great Kanto Earthquake. She believes that the backlash against feminism in Japan is due to the structural repression of commercial sex, which has continued due to the lack of critical examination of colonialist violence.

Artist Profile

Rom Hashimoto (they/them)

Born in 1995, Tokyo. they/them. director, choreographer, curator. They/them is a director, choreographer, and curator. They/them is a director, choreographer, curator, and performer of highly contemporaneous performing arts productions, art events, and projects that explore themes such as minority politics, queer activism, and decolonialism, and that aim to connect the work to society and the city as a means of generating resistance and noise. The company’s style is characterized by site-specific spatial design and an approach that explores themes from multiple perspectives, presenting new assumptions about the subject matter.

Main Directed and Choreographed Works

• 2024 “Feast/SYMPOSION”organized bySetagaya Cultural Foundation,Setagaya Public Theatre
• 2023 “Slow Hertz” organized by Slow Label, ZOU-NO-HANA Terrace
• 2023 “Pan” (Recreation version) Presented by Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, Small Hall
• 2022 “2020” Presented by Parco Produce, directed by Akira Shirai, starring Issei Takahashi, Parco Theatre, etc.
• 2021 “Etan Guma” presented by Dance Base Yokohama × Aichi Prefectural Art Theater, KAAT Naka Studio
• 2021 “Pan” organized by Dance New Air, Spiral Hall
• 2021 “Devil Dance” organized by Yokohama Dance Collection, Noge Shale

Awards

• 2024 THEATRE ARTS Best Stage 1st Place
• 2024 Best Dance Performance of the Year by Asahi Shimbun
• 2024 Selected as the best dance performance of the year by Yomiuri Shimbun
• 2021 Japan Dance Forum Award
• 2021 Best Dance Performance of the Year by Asahi Shimbun
• 2020 Yokohama Dance Collection Best New Choreographer Award
• 2019 SICF20 Grand Prix in the PLAY category

Credits

Organized by: Hashimoto Romance, Dance Base Yokohama
Research cooperation: uhi, Blue Sword, Azusa Karai