Nanako Nakajima

Dr. Nanako Nakajima（中島那奈子） is a scholar and a pioneer of dance dramaturg, and a certified traditional Japanese dance master, Kannae Fujima. She has been a Valeska Gert Visiting Professor 2019/20, Freie Universitaet Berlin.

Her dramaturgy includes luciana achugar’s “Exhausting Love at Danspace Project” (2006-07 New York Dance and Performance Awards, ‘The Bessies’), koosil-ja's “mech[a]OUTPUT”, Osamu Jareo's “Theater Thikwa plus Junkan Project,” Ong Ken Sen’s “OPEN WITH THE PUNK SPIRIT! Dance Archive Box,” andSebastian Matthias’ "x/groove space," Wang Mengfan’s tanztheater “WHEN MY CUE COMES, CALL ME, AND I WILL ANSWER” at Wuzhen Theatre Festival, China, 2019. Nanako’s curatorial and performative work includes “Dance Archive Boxes @TPAM2016,” “Dancing Multiple Futures,” The Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2017, Tokyo Photographic Museum, “Yvonne Rainer Performative Exhibition” at Kyoto Art Theater Shunju-za 2017. Nanako received 2017 Special Commendation of Elliott Hayes Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dramaturgy from the Literary Manager and Dramaturgs of the Americas. 

Publications in English: Dance Dramaturgy: Modes of Agency, Awareness and Engagement (Palgrave, 2015), The Aging Body in Dance: A cross-cultural perspective, co-edited with G. Brandstetter (Routledge, 2017); Moving (Across) Borders: Performing Translation, Intervention, Participation (transcript, 2017); Anohni—My Truth, James Elaine, Peter Hujar, Kazuo Ohno (Walther König, 2017), Movements of Interweaving: Dance and Corporeality in Times of Travel and Migration (Routledge, 2018), "The Outside of Butoh is the Inside of the Body: Ko Murobushi and the Process of Self-mummification" in The TDR/The Drama Review, Vol. 63, No. 2 (T242) 2019. Nanako has served as an issue editor for Performance Research, Vol. 24, No. 2: ‘On Ageing (& Beyond)' (2019), and published her Japanese books including “Oi to Odori” (Aging + Dancing,) co-edited with K. Toyama (Keiso Shobo, 2019).