Choreographer’s Cut 2022 Hetain Patel, Saburo Teshigawara/KARAS, Wendy Houstoun

Photo Oliver Parker

Hetain Patel is a London based artist. His live performances, films, sculptures, and photographs have been shown worldwide in galleries, theatres, and on iconic public screens including Piccadilly Circus, London and Times Square, New York. His works have been presented at the Venice Biennale, Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing and Tate Modern, London to Sadler’s Wells, where he is a New Wave Associate.

His work exploring identity and freedom, using choreography, text and popular culture appears in multiple formats and media, intended to reach the widest possible audience. His video and performance work online have been watched over 50 million times, which includes his TED talk of 2013 titled, Who Am I? Think Again.

Patel is represented by Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, is a Patron of QUAD, Derby, and a trustee of the Liverpool Biennial. He is the winner of the Film London Jarman Award, 2019, Kino Der Kunst Festival’s Best International Film 2020, and has been selected to participate in British Art Show 9, 2021/22. In 2021 Patel received a Paul Hamlyn Foundation Artist Award, declined a British Empire Medal and was a judge on Sky Arts television series, Landmark.

Photo Akihito Abe

Saburo Teshigawara began his unique creative career in 1981 in his native Tokyo after studying plastic arts and classic ballet. In 1985, he formed KARAS with Kei Miyata and started group choreography and their own activities. Since then, he and KARAS have been invited every year to perform in major international cities around the world.

In addition to solo performances and his work with KARAS, Saburo Teshigawara has also been receiving international attention as a choreographer/director. He has been commissioned by many international Ballet companies such as the Paris Opera to create repertoire pieces for the company.

Teshigawara has likewise received increasing international attention in the visual arts field, with art exhibitions, films/videos as well as designing scenography, lighting and costume for all his performances.

Teshigawara’s keenly honed sculptural sensibilities and powerful sense of composition, command of space and his decisive dance movements all fuse to create a unique world that is his alone. Keen interests in music and space have led him to create site-specific works, and collaboration with various types of musicians.

Besides the continuous workshops at the KARAS studio in Tokyo, Saburo Teshigawara has been involved in many education projects. Recent young members of the company KARAS are from the project Dance of Air, an educational project bringing out a performance as a culmination of a year-long workshop process, produced by the New National Theatre Tokyo. S.T.E.P. (Saburo Teshigawara Education Project) has been initiated since 1995 with partners in the UK, also in the same style as Dance of Air. In 2004, he was selected as the mentor of dance for The Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, to work for one year with a chosen protégé. From 2006 to 2013, he taught at the College of Contemporary Psychology, St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University in Japan. Since 2014, he is professor at the Tama Art University, department of Scenography Design, Drama, and Dance. Through these various projects, Saburo Teshigawara continues to encourage and inspire young dancers, together with his creative work.

Since 2013, he has established his own private creative space KARAS APPARATUS in Ogikubo, Tokyo. Here, he constantly creates a performance series called Update Dance.

His work has won numerous awards and honours in Japan and abroad, including a Bessie Award in 2007, the Medal of Honor by the Emperor of Japan in 2009 and in 2017 he was made an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France. He is going to be awarded The 2022 Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Venice this year.

He is the Artistic Director of Aichi Prefectural Art Theater.

Photo Hugo Glendinning

Wendy Houstoun is a movement/theatre artist whose work has developed a uniquely distinctive style combining movement with text, and meaning with humour.

Starting with Ludus Dance in 1980 she has since created a substantial body of solo work confronting the themes of ageing, death, drinking and the state of England with typical commitment and irreverence.

These pieces have run alongside work with influential companies: DV8 Physical Theatre, Tim Etchells and Forced Entertainment, Vincent Dance Company, Lumiere and Son Theatre, and artists: David Hinton, Jonathan Burrows and Matteo Fargion, Nigel Charnock and Rose English, in large and small stages, specific sites, film and installation.