Denise Fujiwara is a Canadian dancer and choreographer. She created Fujiwara Dance Inventions and co-founded the CanAsian International Dance Festival.

Life

Fujiwara started her career as a member of the Canadian rhythmic gymnastics team. Her mother performed in a modern dance company, and introduced her to modern dance as way to express her voice. She joined the dance program at

York University York University (), also known as YorkU or simply YU), is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's third-largest university, and it has approximately 53,500 students, 7,000 faculty and staff, ...

and practiced classical ballet, modern and contemporary dance.

Career

In 1978, Fujiwara found the collective Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise (TIDE) together with other choreographers. She created Fujiwara Dance Inventions in 1991 to develop her solo projects. In 1993, she began practicing

butoh is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement. Following World War II, butoh arose in 1959 through collaborations between its two key founder ...

with master choreographer and performer

Nakajima Natsu Nakajima Natsu (1943 – 3 March 2024) was a Japanese dancer and one of the first female butoh is a form of Japanese dance theatre that encompasses a diverse range of activities, techniques and motivations for dance, performance, or movement ...

Works

* Sumida River: choreographed by created by Nakajima Natsu and performed by Denise Fujiwara. This solo established Fujiwara as "a senior solo dance artist and butoh practitioner". * Komachi: choreography by Yukio Waguri. This was Fujiwara's "second major butoh work" * Eunoia: multimedia dance work based on

Christian Bök Christian Bök, FRSC (; born August 10, 1966, in Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian poet known for his experimental works. He is the author of ''Eunoia'', which won the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize. Life and work He was born "Christian Book", but ...

's Griffin book of the same name.

References

External links

Extensive CAET interview by Stephen K. Levine, 2016
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fujiwara, Denise Living people 21st-century Canadian dancers Canadian female dancers Canadian choreographers Canadian women choreographers Year of birth missing (living people)