Shusaku Takeuchi

Shuasaku Takeuchi comes from Japan, where he studied painting, sculpture, and graphic art at the University of Osaka (1968–1971). In 1972 he travelled to Europe and settled in the Netherlands. He has worked, for instance, with the dancers Butho Eiko & Koma, the Argentine choreographer Graziella Martinez, Jango Edwards, and others.

In 1974 he founded his own group, which combines elements of visual art, expressive theatre, pantomime, and dance. This group later evolved into Shusaku & Dormu Dance Theater. During these years Shusaku was very influenced by modern art. He has given many performances with his group around Europe, and since 1980 also in the countries of eastern Europe (Hungary, Poland, Russia – his group was the first to perform with official permission on Red Square in Moscow).

In the 1980s he began to experiment with other art directions: combining expressive theatre with the world of computers, life effects, and virtual reality. Site-specific projects at various summer festivals became his specialty: Freiburg International Theater Festival, Summer Festival of Copenhagen and Kempnagel International Theater Festival in Hamburg.

In subsequent years he continued to create – now considerably monumental – site-specific projects: Floating Silhouettes from 1994, held in an old Amsterdam port, a performance for an ‘industrial mausoleum’; Reservoir (1995) and Bolt (1997) in abandoned Amsterdam docks. In 1999 he did choreography
for Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and in 2000 he began his trilogy for NDT 3 (Sight, 2000; Windage, 2001, and Land, 2002). Since the 1990s Shusaku has also been teaching alongside his work as a director and choreographer.

Shusake’s short film Shelter won the Student Prize and the Czech Crystal Prize at the Golden Prague Television Festival in 2003.