Minako Seki Biografie
Dancing Between
Minako Seki was born in Nagasaki, in Japan.
She started her dance career in Tokyo with the Company Dance Love Machine, under the artistic direction of Tetsuro Tamura and Anzu Furukawa.
At that moment, Tamura was recognized as one of the most innovative choreographers in Japan. His artistic research refused the conventional Butoh forms, willing to go beyond human physical life, to explore deep emotional levels and embrace all aspects of humanity in choreographed movements. Furukawa considered that dance ultimately only exists in the experience of the present moment. Tamura and Furukawa approaches deeply influenced Minako’s artistic view of dance and understanding of the body.
The intensity of a dance movement can be compared with the throwing of a stone. Once the movement has been initiated, its reverberations cannot be stopped. Seki learned to be intensely involved in each movement with full presence, in the here and now.
In 1986 Künstlerhaus Bethanien, first Butoh Festival in Berlin, invited the company Dance Love Machine to perform in Europe and to participate in the festival ‘Die Rebellion des Körpers‘. The tour was intense and a great success. At its end, Minako decided to stay in Berlin.
In 1987 she founded and co-directed the company “Tatoeba -Théâtre Danse Grotesque”, the first Butoh dance ensemble in Europe. The group explored the dormant potential of human beings. This has been a recurrent theme in Minako’s work and she has continued to investigate it in all her dance productions.
Since 1987, Minako Seki has been working as a director and choreographer in increasingly interdisciplinary projects, such as her choreography for the opera “The Final Solution” by Peter Michael Hamel. She directed many performance groups, as for Showcase Beat le Mot and the group She She Pop.
In 1996 Minako founded her own company. She has been continuously interested in the crossing over of diverse disciplines and dance styles. She developed her own fusion of contemporary dance and physical theater with the classic Butoh dance technique.
In her pieces, Seki examines the communication amongst the conscious and subconscious and describes emotional states on the borders of reality and illusion. Her unique composition method and creative process has been recognized worldwide, having been invited to major theatre venues and festivals. In appreciation of her unique and uncompromising talent she has received numerous prices and awards.
Israel Galvan commissioned her to create a piece that offered her own unique interpretation of flamenco. This performance, ‘Equilibrio Arcaico’, was presented in the Ciutat Flamenco Festival in Barcelona in 2016.
She is part of the project WE WOMEN, created and directed by the Spanish dancer Sol Picó, who won 34 world prizes for her dance creations. In this project, she collaborates with Shantala Shivalingappam, Marta Robles, AdeleMadau, Lina León, and Julie Dassovi to explore the contemporary condition of women. The piece (twice finalist in the Spanish Max Prize Awards) has a great success in theaters, such as the Grec Festival in Barcelona, Fabbrica Europa in Florence and FIBA Festival in Buenos Aires.
She lately collaborated with Yumiko Yoshioka, and Wolfgang Piontek, to create 2 powerful duets: ZERO in 2020 and TWO in 2019, both productions of Commedia Futura – Eisfabrik.
She performs her unique repertoire (Human Form1, Human Form2- Puppet, Owl/ Existence) in theaters and festivals all over the globe.
Besides her artistic career, Minako Seki is devoted to teaching. She facilitates intensive dance workshops worldwide, through a holistic program. She also lectured in a number of universities such as Folkwang University in Essen, Justus Liebig Universität in Giessen, Germany, University of Andes in Chile, University of Vigo in Spain and Roehampton University in London.
She works with a team of people that support her vision: Nils Willers, Lili Lenfant, Inalu Antoli, Moritz Bonatti, Franziska Gerth, Roger Solernou, Antje Schmidt, Ralph Assmann, Alenka Wolf.
Biografie von Website Minako Seki
Cosmos
I see many points that are connecting into a circle. These points are spaces, feelings, memories, images and imaginations.
In between these points there are other points, endlessly. With my dance I want to find the moments in between these points. That is offering endless possibilities to my dance.
Minako Seki