Session House Annual Reports
Voice of Session House

Founded in 1991, Session House reaches the major milestone of its 35th anniversary in 2026. Through a history of ups and downs, many dancers and artists have helped us realise a wide range of projects. Even through the enormous obstacle of the pandemic, we found ways to keep making history...

Around 1960, an Italian film with the Japanese title Ekkyo-sha (“Border Crossers”) told the serious story of unemployed Sicilian miners crossing the French border in search of work. Quite apart from the film itself, I seem to have carried a lasting fascination with the idea of crossing boundaries. Many dance performances at Session House have crossed and interwoven boundaries of genre, ideas and ways of expression...

Founded in 1991, Session House passed its 30th anniversary amid the upheaval of the pandemic, unable to hold commemorative events. We continued presenting performances, limiting audience numbers while finding ways to stream them online. In 2023, as the storm of the pandemic subsided, audiences began returning to live dance and many performances took place. Our open-entry Theater 21 Fes introduced its U25...

As though adding to the hardships of the pandemic, the wars in Ukraine and Myanmar have become increasingly severe, leaving little room for peace of mind. In this difficult world, dancers, choreographers and producers pursued many different activities in 2022, each carrying their own thoughts and feelings. Everyone kept working in the spirit of “only a dancer, yet a dancer; only an artist, yet an artist.” The Power of Dance Project created three works in its Family Stories, Then and Now series...

Now in the third year of the pandemic, the situation still advances and retreats, with no room for complacency. Many obstacles stand in the way of our work, making every day a struggle. As this issue was being edited, war broke out in Ukraine, claiming many lives. It recalls Kamo no Chomei's lament in Hojoki for a world beset by epidemics, earthquakes, storms and war: “The old capital is already in ruins, and the new is not yet complete. All people...”

Here is a photograph. It appeared in a newspaper in late March, when the new coronavirus was beginning to spread around the world. It shows an ordinary square in Paris, the Eiffel Tower in the distance, with just one man jogging. Yet when I saw it, I felt that this was the world the coronavirus had made, and a chill came over me. It was not a photograph of medical workers caring tirelessly for seriously ill patients, nor of something brought into the square...

Dancers and artists are actively making work for the stage while exploring how to engage with society. Beginning with this issue, the Annual Report centres on their voices.