The contemporary dance classes at Session House are taught by dancers and choreographers who are working now, in Japan and abroad. Each brings a different technique, so the classes do not add up to a single house style - they are nine different ways into the body. Classes run on weekdays only, and are closed on public holidays.

 

Since January 2026 there is no membership. Anyone may book a single class, including visitors to Tokyo.

 

The classes

● Naoko Ito - Dance Basic
● Ryohei Kondo - Movement Inspiration
● Taiju Matsumoto - Release Technique
● Kaho Kogure - Movement Research
● Asami Ida - Cell Stretch
● Tatsukuni Ikegami - Contemporary Contact Technique
● Tomoko Hirata - Dance Technique Foundations (Thursday mornings, 2026)
● Yuko Hashimoto - LBMS Somatic Dance Lab (one-year course)
● Jun Morii - Contemporary Dance Open Class

 

Fees and booking

 

Tax included. Advance reservation is required for every class. Book through the reservation form, or contact us directly by email or telephone.

 

 

Email: mail@session-house.net
Tel: +81-(0)3-3266-0461 (11:00-19:00)

 

Classes are taught in Japanese, but dance is largely shown rather than explained, and several of the teachers have worked abroad. If you are unsure which class would suit you, write to us in English and we will suggest one.

 

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Naoko Ito - Dance Basic

Two classes that grow the body and the expression, led by the choreographer of Mademoiselle Cinema

 

Everyone has, equally, the particular quality of their own body. These classes are about raising that up as dance - for people who want to enjoy dancing and to go further into it.

 

Exploration Class. Working from a centre built through breath and image, you develop the sense of a dancing body. Through floor work, centre work and combinations you face your own body and dig into the physical expression that belongs to you alone. A class for concentrating on yourself at the end of the day. For those with dance experience, and for anyone wanting to explore expression.

 

Beginners Class. You feel and experience the strangeness of expression, and the possibilities of a body used differently from sport. Floor work lying down, centre work standing up to learn dance positions, and combinations that join movement into dancing. A beginners' class for enjoying the act of dancing. No experience needed.

 

Profile. Naoko Ito founded Session House in 1991 and Mademoiselle Cinema in 1993, and has led the company since. Her choreography for "A Strange Place" won the Newcomer's Prize at the 63rd National Arts Festival in 2008; in 2011 the company took the Audience Prize at the Gryfino festival in Poland. The company has appeared at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival (2008) and the Festival d'Avignon (2013). See her full profile.

 

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Ryohei Kondo - Movement Inspiration

 

This class is about the pleasure the body already contains. Expressiveness aside, you take on movement - sometimes suited to your build and age, sometimes deliberately not - and explore what a body can do. Beginners, people who think they are bad at dancing, people who want to try, people who love it: each meets their own body at their own stage.

 

The more technique someone has built up, the more there comes a moment when they want to stop. The form is perfect and yet nothing moves inside. That is exactly when inspiration is needed. This is not a class for building a body; it is time to find the moment when the body moves you. A body trained over many years gets to leap freely again - come and feel that release.

 

Profile. Raised in Peru, Chile and Argentina. He founded Condors in 1996 and has toured at home and abroad, working as a choreographer for television commercials, music theater and the stage. Winner of the Dance Critics Association Newcomer's Prize (2003) and the Asahi Performing Arts Award Terayama Shuji Prize (2004). He has taught workshops all over Japan and lectures at J. F. Oberlin University among others. Artistic director of the Sainokuni Saitama Arts Theater since April 2022, and awarded the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2025.

 

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Taiju Matsumoto - Release Technique

 

A class for moving strongly and pliably while releasing the body, taught by one of Japan's leading exponents of release technique. You swing by giving yourself to gravity, and travel using the weight of a tilted body - training inside a natural flow. By raising your control and growing a clean, plain body with nothing wasted in it, you build the capacity to answer any choreography.

 

The essence of release technique is not letting go of strength, but using precisely the strength required. Starting from the foundations, the class works toward dynamic and expressive movement. It suits young dancers who want to understand a choreographer's work exactly and answer it with the body.

 

"I still have vivid memories, and the notebooks. The faces of the teachers I studied with at Laban and at Limon come back to me, and I am wrapped in the words and the spirit they gave me. My body is made of the seeds and hints of dance they gave me - so I would like to hand those on to everyone in the class, through dancing." - Taiju Matsumoto

 

Profile. Contemporary dancer. From 1989 he learned the foundations of stage expression with the reading-theater group D.I.L. led by Akira Okada. He went to Britain in 1997 and studied contemporary dance from scratch at the Laban Centre, becoming absorbed in release technique; the following year he joined Transitions Dance Company. In 1999 he moved to Hong Kong, teaching and performing. In 2001 he was selected for the 5th Profession Choreography programme run by SiWiC and took part in a residential choreographic intensive in Switzerland. From 2005 he ran the ten-year creative project "Dance of the Forest" with Andy Wong. On an Agency for Cultural Affairs fellowship he went to the United States in 2010 and immersed himself in Limon technique at the Limon Institute. Part-time lecturer at Toyo University. From Kawagoe, Saitama.

 

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Kaho Kogure - Movement Research

 

Dance is a near-at-hand way of leading the body toward new sensations and discoveries. You listen to yourself, observe, tune your condition and move. The class explores dance from several approaches at once - the structure of the body, imagery, rules of movement. Everyone from the inexperienced to the professional is welcome.

 

As a research class, it shares the present tense of dance with Kaho Kogure, who works as a dancer and choreographer not only on stage but across the art scene, and lets you experience the leading edge of expression through the body. Recommended for young dancers looking for a way into making their own work.

 

Profile. Dancer and choreographer, dancing since the age of six. She presents her own work while active across theaters, live music and media. Her solo "Mimosa" (2015) has been performed in nine cities in three countries since its premiere. She has appeared in works by many choreographers including Akira Kasai and toured abroad. Recent work includes collaborations with orchestras and artists from other fields, group pieces and choreography for film. Winner of the 2nd Session Best Prize and the 6th El Sur Foundation Newcomer's Prize. kogurekaho.com

 

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Asami Ida - Cell Stretch

 

Based on Ilan Lev, a body method that originated in Israel, the class teaches a way of using the body that lets go of strain and circulates energy from within. Asami Ida, who works internationally as a dancer, draws on what she has built in her own creation and performance to open out a range of approaches - body research, improvisation, choreography, work in pairs - shaped each week to the people in the room. As a practitioner of Israeli dance, she invites you to find the moment when movement is discovered from deep in the body.

 

Profile. Choreographer and dancer, director of Arche. She studied dance at the University of Tsukuba and its graduate school. In 2013-14 she went to Israel on an Agency for Cultural Affairs fellowship for emerging artists, and from 2014 to 2019 belonged to MARIAKONG in Israel, founding her own company Arche in 2020. In the 2022-23 season she competed in Japan's professional dance league, D.LEAGUE, as part of LIFULL ALT-RHYTHM. Recent work includes a collaboration with the contemporary artist Maki Ohkojima, and "The Song of 52 Hertz" (2023) co-presented with Kanagawa Prefecture. She now works between Nagano and Tokyo on the theme of human connection. First prize at the International Competition of Modern Choreography in Vitebsk 2012, and an Encouragement Prize at Yokohama Dance Collection 2021 Competition I. Part-time lecturer at Shinshu University, and one of only three certified Ilan Lev therapists in Japan.

 

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Tatsukuni Ikegami - Contemporary Contact Technique

 

The class begins with basic training by various means, facing the body with the aim of being able to move freely, and from there works on contact as a technique - a technique of touching and dancing together with someone else. Knowing your partner and learning to control how you handle a body leads back to knowing yourself, and from there to a body that moves actively and freely.

 

"How you handle the body matters: what counts is not forcing movement but understanding the principles and moving from those." Contact is something anyone can do with anyone, but this class aims at raising the body's capacity and building contact skill.

 

Profile. From Hyogo. He began dancing at sixteen through creative dance, and graduated from Osaka University of Health and Sport Sciences. He was based in Kyoto after graduating, moved to Tokyo in 2019 and joined ORGANWORKS, and in 2022 founded the dance company BALA with dancers of his own generation. He works as a choreographer and dancer, dancing with a distinctive expressiveness and a flexible, explosive physicality.

 

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Tomoko Hirata - Dance Technique Foundations

Thursday mornings, 2026 - a year-long series with four teachers

 

A series that works through the foundations of the various techniques underlying the contemporary dance scene, building the capacity to dance a wide range of movement. It is supervised by Tomoko Hirata and taught by four teachers in turn, each block running for several weeks.

 

We recommend taking a block right through, but single sessions are also possible.

 

Programme for 2026

 

The teachers

Tomoko Hirata - ballet, and the foundations of ballet-based contemporary dance
She thinks about how contemporary dance movement works, taking the mechanics of ballet as her measure: turnout as a movement rather than a position; curve and spiral; swing; releasing the limbs and turning on the axis; jumping in a parabola; joining movements; making gaps in time; moving through cubic space; attending to shifts of the centre of gravity; removing the dead ends in movement.

 

Completed the dance education course at the graduate school of Ochanomizu University. Choreographer and teacher, known for contemporary dance foundation classes built on an analysis that starts from ballet mechanics and reaches into aesthetics. Part-time lecturer at ICU, Rikkyo University, Asia University and Seitoku University; teacher at the Yuriko Kawaguchi Ballet School and Ballet Studio 22; director of Studio Harmonia. RYT200 certified yoga teacher (Yoga Alliance) and certified yoga instructor of sVYASA, India. Dancer and assistant with Aki Nagatani & danscapes 1997-2003; since 2005 she has continued her own project "Warafu Kujira," exploring solo dance.

 

Yukari Ota - release exercise, release & flow technique
In France from 1993 to 1996, studying with Peter Goss and Jose Cazeneuve among others. After returning to Japan she belonged to Dance Theatre LUDENS from 1999 to 2011, appearing in every work across those twelve years. Director of her own project company TERRITORHYTHM. Since 1997 she has systematised and taught her own technique with alignment at its centre. Through dance she met yoga and Pilates and took teaching qualifications: RYT200 certified teacher (Yoga Alliance) and yoga instructor certified by the central government of India.

 

Ryoko Sugimoto - anatomy + Pilates for dance
Body-conditioning teacher. Completed the master's course in dance education (movement science) at Ochanomizu University. From 2002 to 2004 she trained in body conditioning in New York as an Agency for Cultural Affairs overseas fellow. Certified Movement Analyst (LIMS) and certified in Pilates mat exercise (Physical Mind Institute). She currently lectures on body conditioning, anatomy and exercise physiology at Showa University of Music, at Architanz, at the Medicine Chest for Artists, and on yoga instructor training courses and physiotherapist seminars.

 

Koji Mizuta - Cunningham technique
Studied modern dance with Tatsuo Mochizuki and Kazuko Hirabayashi, and ballet with Isamu Hashiura. In 1997 he studied at the Merce Cunningham Studio in New York as an Agency for Cultural Affairs overseas fellow, and from 1998 to 2009 was a member of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, appearing at Lincoln Center, the Paris Opera and other major theaters worldwide, and performing alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov, Radiohead and Sigur Ros. Contemporary dance teacher at the International Ballet Academy, Meguro.

 

 

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Yuko Hashimoto - LBMS Somatic Dance Lab

A one-year course, deepening movement from the basics

 

Holding on to the somatic question - how do I feel this? - the class explores each movement carefully using Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies, and dances. The basic shape of a session is a warm-up led by the teacher's voice, then technique and floor work that train how the body is used, and finally a dance that integrates what has been learned that day. Observation, analysis and creation may also be built in. The class dances not from a particular dance genre but from the principles of movement that underlie everything.

 

What the year is for

Across a year and twenty-four lessons, the aim is to widen the creativity and range of expression available in the way your own body likes to move, and to raise the resolution of your movement. To grow a body that dances both delicately and dynamically, you accumulate a physical and a verbal understanding of the language of movement. Let us look for the way to dance connected to the natural knowledge your body already holds. One breath, one movement, one month at a time.

 

What LBMS is

Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies holds a rich language of movement, and has contributed to the development of physical education and dance education in Europe, the United States and elsewhere as one of their foundations. Very few people in Japan hold the qualification, so it is rare here - there is no other open dance class in Japan built around LBMS.

 

The twelve stages

 

Profile. Yuko Hashimoto is a dance educator, researcher and choreographer. Working from Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies, she carries out somatic movement and dance education and research with everyone from children to adults, and is one of the very few people in Japan to hold the CMA qualification. She completed graduate study at Ochanomizu University and in the dance department of the State University of New York at Brockport, and holds a doctorate in sport and health science. She learned LBMS-based dance technique, creation and teaching from Bill Evans (CMA) and from Richard Haisma (CMA) of Geomantics Dance Theater. She currently works on choreography for NHK's "Okaasan to Issho," supervised the book "Okoy de Manekko! Anpanman Wakuwaku Taiso" (Froebel-kan), and lectures at Ochanomizu University.

 

 

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Jun Morii - Contemporary Dance Open Class

Floor work × flow × dynamics - "free the body, make dancing more interesting"

 

Starting from the relationship with the floor, the class explores the flow of the whole body while making an ally of gravity. Through floor work and elements drawn from contact, you feel the body's connections, the breath and balance deeply, and the class values the noticing and the discovery that arise inside movement.

 

Building on the experience and the solid technique Jun Morii has gathered in Japan and abroad, it researches carefully from the floor up to standing, growing a flexible physical sense and a performing capacity that can meet any situation, and a body that is free and supple.

 

No dance experience is required. This is an open class for anyone with the will and the curiosity - come and look for new possibilities in the body with us.

 

Profile. He met dance while studying theater at university, and went to Britain after graduating, studying contemporary dance at the Laban Centre. Back in Japan he founded J.A.M. DANCE THEATRE with Mayuko Aihara and others, performing at home and abroad. Since 2016 he has appeared in many productions, including Damien Jalet & Kohei Nawa's "VESSEL," Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's "Pluto" and "Evangelion Beyond," and Inbal Pinto's "Future Boy Conan." He teaches contemporary, contact and floor work, and choreographs and performs for stage, events and music videos. From 2021 he was assistant director and dancer with D.LEAGUE's LIFULL ALT-RHYTHM, and since 2025 has worked freelance, opening new ground in expression alongside dance.

 

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Other classes

Ballet, Nihon Buyo (traditional Japanese dance) and children's ballet are listed with the full weekly timetable on the dance class page. Short-term intensives and the Dance Senka course are on the workshops page, and the children's school has its own page.