Mina Nishimura

Mina Nishimura, originally from Tokyo, was introduced to butoh and improvisational dance practice through Kota Yamazaki and studied at Merce Cunnigham Studio in NYC. Carrying Buddhism-influenced philosophy across her somatic, performance, choreographic and drawing practices, Nishimura attempts to converse with invisible, marginalized, forgotten, abandoned or unknown senses, beings and landscapes. She has been performing and collaborating with a number of groundbreaking artists, in the most recent years, such as John Jasperse, Dean Moss, Neil Greenburg, Vicky Shick, Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, Yasuko Yokoshi and SIA for her Saturday Night Live performance. Commissioners of her recent works include NYU Skirball Center, Danspace Project, Gibney, Mount Tremper Arts Center, and Sarah Lawrence College. Nishimura is a recipient of Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award 2019, and was a cover and featured artist in the May 2021 issue of Dance Magazine. Nishimura is the Renewal Residency Artist of 2021-22 at Danspace Project where her new work, Mapping a Forest while Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist is anticipated to premiere in the fall 2022. She currently teaches at Bennington College where she earned her master degree in 2021.

[Image Description: A close-up face of a Japanese woman with a white blond-ish short hair in a white knit cap. A piece of blue tape on her nose and right cheek.]