Niigata is approximately 388 kilometres northwest of Tokyo, a mountainous area known for rice, sake, and Shintoism, with the most dedicated shrines of any prefecture in Japan. Thanks to Kanamori, it’s also an area now known for contemporary dance. The critical and commercial success of Ryutopia’s residential company, Noism, the nation’s only publicly-funded dance company, has put Niigata and Ryutopia on the arts map of Japan.

As part of his negotiations when he accepted the directorship in 2004, Kanamori founded Noism, hoping to change performing arts culture by creating a supported environment for dancers. Under his leadership as artistic director, Noism has built both a national and international following in the last 20 years. Unfortunately, establishing a sustainable system for publicly-funded arts, common across Europe, proved difficult in Japan. When additional support for Noism was denied last year, Kanamori decided it was time for a change. From September of 2027, Kanamori and Noism will crest a sea change after 23 years of success at Ryutopia. 

“Dance is a fundamental human practice through which we remain human,” says Kanamori. “Dance was humanity’s first language; through our bodies, we shared with the world our joy and sorrow, life and death, our awe of nature and our gratitude for it. By moving to Yahiko village, I want to return to something more traditional.” 

Yahiko, 45 minutes from Ryutopia near Niigata’s coast, is a small village known throughout Japan as the sacred home to a 2,400 year old shrine of the same name. Joining us in conversation is Sawako Iseki, Noism’s vice-artistic director and principal dancer. She’s also Kanamori’s partner in life. 

“There's a Japanese term, geinō,” Iseki explains. “It's easy to translate as simply ‘entertainment,’ but in this context, we're talking about something older and more fundamental. Dance was not just entertainment; it was a supplication within the small community.”

As Kanamori adds, it aligns more closely to Japanese stage arts like noh, bunraku or kabuki. “The issues we raise through our work may be new, and we may be making statements about contemporary society, but we want to value traditional methods again,” says Kanamori. “That means training the body in a very simple way, with renewed levels of concentration, working together as a group. These are things that are gradually disappearing from society. We want to begin the struggle to recover those values, starting from Yahiko Village.”

Kanamori and Iseki are no strangers to change. Coincidentally, they both left Japan as teenagers to pursue dance opportunities in Switzerland. Four years older, Kanamori joined École-Atelier Rudra Béjart in Lausanne at 17, the first Japanese national to be accepted, before establishing his career as a dancer throughout Europe. Iseki was 16 when she entered the National Ballet School of Zürich, later moving to Rudra Béjart Lausanne to study contemporary dance. Kanamori had already graduated.