Dance
Keiko Kitano Thomson
Course Director
BIOGRAPHY
A “Masterful choreographer” (The Globe and Mail), Keiko Kitano is an independent dance
artist with a unique style influenced by her study of Butoh and Japanese dance. She has been a
guest artist at numerous festivals.
In Tokyo, before moving to Toronto, Keiko Kitano danced for the dance company called
“Miyako Kato Dance Space” as a principal dancer from 1991- 2003. She started working as a
solo dance artist in 1996 and had been a guest artist at numerous international dance festivals.
She has worked with many artists in Tokyo, including composer Maki Ishii, where she danced in
his Opera with the Butoh group DAIRAKUDAKAN. In 1998, She started working together with
Multimedia Artist, Rick Thomson, and in 2001, founded the Tokyo Dance Collective with Rick
Thomson and composer, Hiroshi Tamura (TAMURAN MUSIC).
A resident of Toronto since 2003, Keiko has collaborated with many local artists
including her husband Rick Thomson, Sonora, Parmela Attariwara, Nagata-Shachu, Aki Takahashi,
Daniel Schnee, Don Sinclair and others, as well as internationally collaborating with costume
designer Shingo Tokihiro and TAMURAN MUSIC with the aim of unifying dance, music and
multimedia by creating new interactive pieces.
As a dancer, she has worked with many local choreographers including Holly Small, Sashar
Zarif, Terrill Maguire, Susan Cash, Maxine Heppner, Viv Moore, Dave Wilson, Emily Cheung, Susan
Lee among others. As well, Keiko was honoured to be a part of Toronto’s “First Impression
Campaign” in 2009 (http://www.torontoartsfoundation.org/First-Impressions-hiddenpages/Keiko-Kitano), to be the first artist in residence at Toronto’s Heliconian Club (2011) and
received Dance Ontario’s partnership award in 2012. She also feels privileged to be a part of CBC’s
documentary, Dance in the City, September 2012
(http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/Toronto/ID/2284721431/).
As an educator, she has been teaching dance at the University level for more than 30 years,
and was a full-time faculty for the Japan Women’s College of Physical Education (Dance Major,
1991 – 2003). Since residing in Toronto, Keiko shares her passion of dance art as a part-time faculty
of York University since 2006. She feels honor to be invited to share her passion of Limon based
contemporary dance technique knowledge with Japanese students back in her previous worked
University since 2014 to 2021.
Keiko holds a Master’s degree in Dance
Dance
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