Mioko YoshiharaF dancer, performer, choreographer
After studying philosophy and sociology in Waseda Univ., Mioko chose to continue her dance study, by taking different courses in Tokyo, North America, and Europe, as well as dancing in GOLGI WORX Co.(directed by Sadayuki Hayashi & Kazuyoshi Ono), LENI-BASSO (directed by Akiko Kitamura), and Naomi Mutoh dance Company. To study contemporary dance, and release technique, with the gift of working experience with those choreographers, she left for Europe in 1999.
In 2000, under the scholarship from European Union, she participated in THE X GROUP, the post graduate residency project in P.A.R.T.S.(school directed by Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker), where 25 young professional dancers/choreographers were collected to collaborate. Through the great meeting with the great people in the X group, she joined in two creations, "XL"(by Maria Clara Villa Lobos), and "Surfaces Cleverly Implied Slightly Lucid Exterior"(by Katalina Mella Araneda).
From September 2000, she had been a guest student in EDDC(European Dance Development Centre) in Arnhem, the Netherlands for one year, and studied release technique, improvisation, composition, and so on. One of the pieces Mioko joined during her study in the piece by Armand van den Hamer, ON COMMON GROUND, which was a special opportunity for her to focus on Japanese culture through dancing.
2001-2002, "Previous"(by Salva Sanchis) was a challenge on improvisation, which is a kind of challenge of jazz musicians improvising along with certain codes with wide range of ÔfreedomÕ. Clarity and intuition, self-awareness and openness to the others, being abstract at the same time concretely expressive, those points were questioned lively in every performance of this piece.
2003 was a year of site-specific projects, performances outside so-called conventional theatres. Started from the shooting in a harbor ("9 x landschap"), pieces were presented, on a vast white wall of a factory, a grass field in front of highways, unloading slots for the trucks ("P.O.P.-Ups"), a botanical garden ("On Common Ground 2"), and an old church ("zucht" ). Each place had a different character, which provided such a strong atmosphere for the performance and inevitable influence on the movements. Utilising the characteristic of the space and integrating its energy into dance were the most inspiring experience.
"The Rabbit Project" (2003) was extremely physical, exciting, intensive 6weeks. Together with 16 other strong dancers and the master, David Zambrano, just dancing and eating was the purely fantastic time. "When you pass through something, that thing is passing through you." : Physicality, unlimited imagination, relationship to inside body, otherÕs body and space outside, unknown quest to the eternity, so many things learn and still to be digested.
Also in 2003, Mioko presented a duet with video projection, "In between", which was a completion of the research project "what we want to speak to the world" conducted in corporation with P.A.R.T.S. SUMMER STUDIO 2002. Great feeling to produce own piece sometimes!
2004, "Vormsnoei" (by Sanne van Rijn, ZT Hollandia) was a new meeting to the Dutch theatre world. What can a performance do? How can we make theatre happening? "Vormsnoei" looks simple, not so much spectacles are happening, but therefore people start to see the most complex things in it by themselves. The performance happening in audienceÕs imagination: that was a great accomplishment of this simple but radical piece.
The improvisation dance performance with 6 live musicians, "Fu-jin" (Japan Four Seasons) was a great success. In collaboration with Naomi Sato and Hiroaki Kanai, the performance became an experimental playground, where to experience four seasons as birth - rebirth circle of life. The connection between dance and music and high concentration from audience expectation were supporting the performance to be more than just alive.