Residency Program for FY2026 Open Residency Program
We are pleased to announce the results of the Dance Base Yokohama (hereinafter referred to as “DaBY”) 2026 Open Call for Residency Program.
One of the features of this program is that it emphasizes an environment in which artists can spend time on the process of creation itself, without rushing to complete their work. The program provides studio space, production costs, and public relations and technical support, with no restrictions on use or completion obligations.
We are pleased to announce that 8 projects have been selected for the 2026 program year. We received 79 applications for this year’s open call, and 5 artists/teams will be participating in the 3F Creation Space and 3 artists/teams will be participating in the 1F Open Studio, each with different questions and methodologies for this year’s program.
The selection process was led by DaBY staff. We considered the projects based on the earnestness of the questions they posed, the concreteness of their path to realization, and the balance between experimentation and coherence. At the same time, we took care to ensure that the eight selected projects as a whole would have a variety of directions in the program. We did not base our evaluation on the degree of completion of the work or its past achievements. We leave it to the discretion of the artists themselves to decide what questions they will confront and what areas they will venture into in the process of production.
Those who were not selected also submitted numerous proposals backed by a strong awareness of the issues and unique perspectives. This year’s selection was not based on a ranking of individual projects, but rather on how multiple initiatives could run together over the course of the entire year’s program. Final acceptance or rejection is based on limited studio space and budget constraints, and is not an evaluation of the value of the proposals themselves. We hope that you will apply again.
Dance Base Yokohama
About 1F Open Studio
This year, we are pleased to announce the addition of the 1st floor open studio as a venue for the Open Call for Residency Program. The 1st floor is a space that is shared with partner companies and is close to the entrance to the building and is a place where people come and go on a daily basis.
A safe environment for production is not only a matter of concentration for the artists, but also of the daily lives of the visitors, partners, and neighbors who share this place with them. The eight artists selected for this year’s program will work simultaneously in such an environment.
Selected projects (8 groups in total)
3F – Creation Space
After the Garden
Ari Angkasa & Ishvara Devati
A research project that views the body as a compost-like entity. Through experiments in movement and media, the project explores the ever-changing body as it is shaped by memory, water, and soil. Using the processes of disintegration and transformation as clues, the project imagines the trans women’s body as a “living ecology” in a damaged but enduring world.
Organized Play Table Tennis Edition.
Yurika Toyoda
Organized Play Ping-Pong” is a spectator dance work that uses a ping-pong game format, with the rule that the players must “keep dancing. The work creates a situation where the norms of sports, such as scoring and victory or defeat, and the ambiguous criteria of what constitutes dance intersect, and questions how the audience, the referee, and the performers each approve of the physical movement. In the tension and speed of a ping-pong rally, the “game” between the body and the body itself is set up.
‘Researching Hustle and Hypnosis (1)’
Hanako Hayakawa & Yaoye Morishita
Morishita and Hayakawa work as freelance dancers, and their experiences will be reflected in this project as they address the issue of work-life balance. In this project, they will consider the “fainting/hypnosis/sleep/relaxation” state, which is the moment when the ego is made non-“exhibition” in the “hustle culture” lifestyle, where working excessively is the best way to gain respect from others and to develop oneself, and explore the physicality of this state and incorporate it into their butoh expression. The goal of this project is to explore the physicality of these states and incorporate them into Butoh dance expression.
New Research & Work in Progress
Dr. Holiday Laboratory
Justin Yamamoto Ito, Asahi Ishikawa, Riho Onodera, Bunnei Yui, Robin Manabat + Masashi Yoshida
In anticipation of a new performance in 2027, we will research gestures and gestures of rappers in particular, and conduct rehearsals and work-in-progress. In order to deepen the research, we will collaborate with Masashi Yoshida, who is active as a rapper and beat-maker as well as a critic.
A RIGHT TO ARM BEARS
Kyle Yamada × Yoei Noda
They will conduct research on the problem of “bear harm” and feelings of exclusion against foreigners, which is an issue in many parts of Japan. Both Kyle Yamada and Yoei Noda are artists with backgrounds outside of Japan, and have collaborated from the perspective of the “absence” of identity in multiple places and languages. In this residency, as part of the research project “A CALL TO BEAR ARMS,” they will create “A RIGHT TO ARM BEARS,” a performance that considers bear harm “from the bear’s perspective. By bringing “bears” into the dichotomy of “Japanese/foreigners,” he disturbs the boundary of exclusion, and the process of accumulating these thoughts through various media is considered a performance in itself, archiving “our bodies that are also bears (others).
1F – Open Studio
LIVE”
SR/Yuria Onishi
Yuria Onishi, Jun Aoyagi
A double bill performance featuring two works formalizing the past experiences of the two artists.
The first work is an attempt to visualize the complex rhythms of jazz music, based on Yuria Onishi’s experience in theater jazz dance as an artist. By interpreting rhythms from sound sources rather than sheet music, she discovers subtle nuances and live-specific rhythms that cannot be transcribed in sheet music, and incorporates them into dance.
The second work is a solo piece by artist Jun Aoyagi, who focuses on the fictional nature of animation and creates “two-dimensional experiences” in a three-dimensional space. By exploring the possibilities of visual flat expressions using various tools and fictions that could happen in reality, he provides an illusory time for live expression.
NuDance Technologies, Inc.
New Dance Research Group
Nanako Matsumoto, Kengo Nishimoto / Team Chipro + Keisuke Sakurai + Pijin Twisted + Noriko Sunayama
New Dance Technologies is a project initiated in 2023 by the performance unit “Team Chipro” and dance critic Keisuke Sakurai. The project aims to collect, reconstruct, and archive “movements” that thrive in certain places, and to perform dance works based on these movements.
The ultimate goal of this project is to make an archive of new body techniques in contemporary dance, comparable to Forsythe’s Improvisation Technologies, available on the web for use by all human beings and dancers.
We will announce what “a certain place” is after the final announcement of this project. At this point, we estimate that about 1,000 “movements” will be archived in “New Dance Technologies.
This time, as an experiment in the process, we will collect, reconstruct, and archive “movements” with dancer/choreographer Pijin TOROSHI and dancer/performance artist Noriko SUNAYAMA, and perform a trial dance based on the archive. The number of members will be gradually increased in the future as they work toward the final presentation and release of the archive.
Dancing Paintings/Body (tentative)
asamicro, Gaun Kim, Masayuki Suga
This project is a research project that explores the space where painting and physical expression meet, starting with the mural “Dream Painters” by the painter Kim Ga-eun. The “still” painting on the temporary construction fence of Kanagawa Park and the “moving” body that opens up the space. What kind of dialogue is created when these two forms of expression intermingle? While organizing the context of the intent behind the mural and its contribution to the local community, and observing the bodies improvising in front of the mural, we will search for ways in which the encounter/intersection of painting and body can be established and function as a performance. The final result of the research will be presented in the form of a performance.
We are pleased to announce the selection of the above eight projects for the 2026 Open Residency Program.
Dance Base Yokohama will provide support for production costs, production work and studio use for each project.
