Mina Nishimura
Mina Nishimura is a Tokyo-born dance artist whose works focus on ever-changing relationships between internal landscapes and external forms. Buddhism-influenced philosophies and butoh-based principles are reflected across her somatic, performance and choreographic practices. Nishimura is a 2019 recipient of Foundation of Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award.
Biography
Nishimura is a dance artist from Tokyo whose practice and research focus on ever-changing relationships between internal landscapes and external forms, as well as images and movements. Buddhism-influenced and Butoh-based concepts and philosophies are reflected across her somatic, performance and choreographic practices.
After graduating from Ochanomizu University in Tokyo with BA in Performing Arts Education, Nishimura continued to study at Merce Cunnigham Studio in New York. After completion of the professional training program, she has performed and collaborated with groundbreaking NY-based choreographers and theater directors such as John Jasperse, Dean Moss, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Vicky Shick, Kota Yamazaki, Nami Yamamoto, Ursula Eagly, RoseAnne Spradlin, David Gordon, DD Dorvillier, Neil Greenburg, Daria Fain, Trajal Harrel, Yoshiko Chuma, Mårten Spångberg, Cori Olinghouse, Moriah Evans, John Jesurun, Ellen Fisher and Stephen Earnharst, while deepening her Butoh practice mainly with Kota Yamazaki. In the latest years in NY, she has also performed with SIA on Saturday Night Live, in PRADA/Miu Miu Women’s Tales directed by Celia Rowlson-Hall and in MV of Late Sea.
Upon her return from Senegal (2003-04) assisting cultural exchange dance project, FAGAALA, choreographed by Germaine Acogny and Kota Yamazaki, Nishimura started making her own work. Her works have been commissioned and presented by NYU Skirball Center, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, Mount Tremper Arts Center, UC Davis (CA), Bennington College (VT), The Metropolitan Autonomous University (Mexico), Dance Theater Workshop, Whenever Wherever Festival (Tokyo), The Kitchen/Dance and Process, among other dance organizations.
Nishimura has been the Artist-in-Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange in 2010-11, Chez Bushwick in 2013, Movement Research in 2013-15, Camargo Foundation (France) in 2017, and Topaz Arts Center in 2019, and also has been teaching at Sarah Lawrence College, UC Davis (CA), Ferris University (Japan), Movement Research and Brooklyn Studios for Dance during these years. Nishimura is also a 2017 recipient of Best Performance in Dance Magazine, and 2019 recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (FCA Award). She was a guest artist at Bennington for the spring of 2008, 2009, 2011, and 2014 and received her MFA in Dance from Bennington in 2021. Nishimura joined the Bennington faculty in Fall 2020.