Ayako
Called “moving everyday sculptures, artfully cast in naturalness” (Luzerner Zeitung, Switzerland), Ayako Kato is a kinetic philosopher/poet and contemporary choreographer/dancer originally from Yokohama, Japan. Most recently, she received Heller Fellowship Award to initiate the creation of ETHOS V in collaboration with the University of Colorado Colorado Springs from spring 2025 and Sybil Shearer Fellowship at Ragdale in preparation for ETHOS IV: Degrowth/Cycle/Rebirth premiered at the Dance Center of Columbia College Chicago & Grant Park in April 2024. In 2023, she received a United States Artist Fellowship and enshrined in the Hall of Fame in Dance by Newcity Stage Magazine’s Players: Who Really Performs for Chicago (recognized in 2014, 2018, 2020). Since 1998, her production company Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape is in deep collaboration with live music and grounded on the principles of fūryū, Japanese for “wind flow”, cyclical transformation and human motion in nature. She collaborated with more than eighty musician-composers, and has toured throughout the US, Japan, and Europe.
She toured Japan in Fall 2023 and Europe in Fall 2022 with Suzuribako music and dance ensemble. She also collaborated with Tomeka Reid, cello to tour in Belgium and Germany, and invited to 3Klang Tage Festival in October 2022 in Zug, Switzerland.
In Fall 2022, she presented “LUCA/Res Communis ETHOS Episode III” as a part of her ongoing choreographic ETHOS project presented by High Concept Labs through Chicago Dancemakers Forum Elevate Chicago Dance Festival. In July 2022, she presented a “Chromosome Dance", as a 3Arts Residency Fellow and guest artist at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, CA, as part of the Marcus Festival: Claiming Space. She received a 2022 Esteemed Artist Award from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the High Concept Labs Fellowship 2021-2022, the 2021 Artist Fellowship Award in Choreography by the Illinois Arts Council, the Trillium Arts 2021 ACE Fellowship in Dance, and the Best of Dance in Chicago Tribune and SeeChicagoDance. She is also a recipient of a Links Hall Co-MISSION Fellowship, a residency at Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France in 2018, a 2016 3Arts Award in Dance, a 2016 Meier Achievement Award, and a Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist Award.
Photo by Ralph Kuehne
The company has received funding from the Reva & David Logan Foundation, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Japan Foundation, The Puffin Foundation, Illinois Arts Council, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), the Chicago Dancemakers Forum, Experimental Sound Studio, and Links Hall. Kato’s current project is “Degrowth, Rebirth, Cycle: ETHOS Final Episode" which will premiere Fall 2023. She is also currently collaborating with Bob Eisen; ENSO Project with Ikebana Master Charles Harris and musician Billie Howard; Breath/Carries/Ritual Project with composer Yvonne Wu and percussionist Jennifer Torrence. In late Fall 2023, she will be touring Japan with saxophonist Sebastian Strinning and violist Frantz Loriot as Suzuribako Music & Dance Trio.
Since 2010, Kato has been an artist in residence at the Hamlin Park Fieldhouse Theater under Chicago Moving Company’s Dance Shelter Program. She has studied dance anatomy under Irene Dowd since 2007. In addition to classical ballet and modern dance, she also studied Tai Chi, Noh Theater, and Butoh with master Kazuo Ohno, one of the founders. She holds MFA in Dance from the University of Michigan and a certificate from the Institute for Curatorial Practice in Performance of Wesleyan University. Gravitating towards eastern and Japanese view of nature, Kato’s dance seeks the way of being and illuminate the dignity of life in response to contemporary society.
Collaborators
Europe: Sebastian Strinning (reed), Frantz Loriot (viola), Hildegard Kleeb (piano); Marie-Cécile Reber (electronics); Roland Dahinden (trombone, percussion), Radim Hanousek (saxophone); Andreas Bral (synth, piano, harmonium, voice); Joachim Badenhorst (reeds), Han Bennink (drums), Eric Boeren (cornet), Leonzio Cherubini (percussion); Axel Döner (trampet); Mary Oliver (violin), Michael Moore (reeds), Tristan Honsinger (cello), Tsubasa Hori (taiko), Wilbert de Joode (double bass); Elisabeth Klinck (violin), Urs Leimgruber (saxophone): Marta Warelis (piano); Oscar Jan Hoogland (piano); Kaja Draksler (piano); Karen Ng (saxophone); Aki Takase (piano); Anke Verslype (drums), Raf Vertessen (drums); Middle East: Özün Usta (drums); Chicago & USA: Jim Becker (violin and multi instruments), Josh Berman (cornet), Jeb Bishop (trombone), Brian Labycz (electronics), Jason Adasiewicz (vibraphone), Jim Baker (piano), Michael Zerang (percussion), Tim Barnes (drums), Caroline Davis (saxophone); Jorrit Dijkstra (saxophone), Hamid Drake (drums), James Falzone (clarinet), Darin Gray (double bass), Will Greene (sax), Keefe Jackson (tenor saxophone), Kent Kessler (double bass), Jeff Kimmel (clarinet), Mabel Kwan (piano, toy piano, accordion), Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Peter Maunu (violin, guitar, mandolin); Joe Morris (bass, guitar), Mike Reed (percussion), Tomeka Reid (cello), Dave Rempis (saxophone), Jason Roebke (double bass), Frank Rosaly (drums), Ned Rothenberg (reeds), Stephen Rush (electronics, voice), Matt Schneider (guitar), Jason Stein (bass clarinet), Wilson Tanner Smith (cello), Tsukasa Taiko, Adam Vida (drums); Albert Wildeman (bass); Katherine Young (bassoon), Michael Zerang (percussion); Japan: Michiyo Yagi (koto); Haco (voice, electronics); Toshimaru Nakamura (no-input mixing board); Taku Sugimoto (guitar); Seijiro Murayama (percussion); Ayako Yoshioka (piano); Nishino Megumu (taiko)
Composers: Manfred Werder, Jason Roebke, Stephan Rush + Michael Gould
Creative Practitioner/Performance Artist: Bryan Saner
Dance Artists: Darling Squire, Tuli Bera, Amanda Maraist, Danielle Ross, Lesley Keller, Aaliyah Christina, Corinne Imberski, Jessica Cornish, Precious Jennings Chrissy Martin, Chicago; Michael Schumacher, Amsterdam; Lily Kiara, Amsterdam; Fine Kwiatkowski, Germany; Saiko Kino, Japan; Heidi S. Durning, Japan
Artists: Yvonne Christen Vágner, Edyta Stepien, Selina Trepp, Nobuki Yamamoto, Yuji Miyao, Haruo Higuma, Gwen Terry, Jotoku Masuda
Film: Ralph Kuehne
Video: Spence Warren
Lighting Design: Giau Truong, Dewon Evans, Chris Wooten, Richard Norwood, Jacob Snodgrass
Costume Design: Amanda Franck, Darling Squire