cv kitamura

Akiko Kitamura (*1970), the artistic focal point of the Leni-Basso company has had a colourful career. Even as a child, she was already performing ballet and Jazz dance. As a teenager she choreographed commercials as well as fashion and TV shows. She went on to study dance theory at the renowned Waseda University in Tokyo. In 1994, she founded the Company with some fellow students. In 1995, Kitamura spent a year in Berlin on a scholarship from the Japanese ministry of culture. Since the year 2000 she has been teaching dance at Shinshu University in the Prefecture of Nagano.In 1994, 1998 and 2000, Akiko Kitamura was chosen for the Japanese entry at the international choreographic competition of Bagnolet. In 1998 she received the Japan Internet Play Awards' Best Performance Prize. In 2003 she was invited by the American Dance Festival, North Carolina, to choreograph the piece enact oneself - it was awarded the prize for the best work of the year. It was with her production Finks in 2001 that Kitamura really made her international breakthrough.