Japan
Yoshinori Niwa is a physical performance artist who often incorporates animals, plants, and the environment into his work. Niwa’s aim is to explore how to live with others, especially those with different life experience (ethno-cultural, economic, etc). Some of his performances are site-specific, however is especially interested in how performances change from venue to venue and between audiences, so he is well attuned to responding to that which is around him. Niwa is a graduate of the Tama Art University Department of Moving Images and Performing Arts (Tokyo) and he has performed in Britain, Canada, China, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. He has also undertaken artistic residences through VENT Live Art (Oxford, UK), The Asahi Shimbun Foundation (Japan), and Tou Scene (Norway). In addition to his performance work, Niwa is active as a cultural producer in Japan and he has collaborated on a range of events and projects including the 2006 Tokyo-San Francisco Arts Festival. In 2007, he coordinated an international art festival titled “Artist as Activist,” which took place in Tokyo.