Saburo
Teshigawara Concept, set, choreography

Saburo Teshigawara studied fine arts and classical ballet in his home city of Tokyo. In 1985, together with Kei Miyata, he founded the Karas ensemble, which creates group choreographies and performs all over the world. Teshigawara's plastic sensibility and his keen sense of composition, spatial understanding and determined dance movements merge to create a unique world that characterises him. His profound interest in music and space has led him to create site-specific performances and collaborate with various musicians. In addition to his ongoing workshops at the Karas Studio in Tokyo, Teshigawara has been involved in numerous educational projects. In 1995, for example, he initiated the S.T.E.P. (Saburo Teshigawara Education Project) together with partners in the UK. From 2006 to 2013, he taught at the College of Contemporary Psychology at St Paul's (Rikkyo) University in Japan. Since 2014, he has been a professor at Tama Art University, Department of Scenography Design, Drama and Dance. Since 2013, he has founded his own private creative space Karas Apparatus in Ogikubo, Tokyo. Here he regularly creates a performance series called 'Update Dance'. Teshigawara's work has been recognised with numerous prizes and awards in Japan and abroad, including a Bessie Award in 2007, the Medal of Honour of the Japanese Emperor in 2009 and, in 2017, appointment as an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. In 2022, Teshigawara received the Golden Lion for his life's work at the Biennale Danza in Venice.