Alongside the weekly classes, Session House runs dance workshops over limited periods. Some are built toward a performance, some are there to move the body harder than a regular class does, some exist to push you into a genre you have never tried. Contemporary dance, ballet, hip-hop, Nihon Buyo, yoga and a good deal else.

 

Come to them, as we put it in Japanese, ready to loosen one more screw.

 

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Mariko Kakizaki - "Gaga people"

The movement language of Batsheva Dance Company, taught by one of the few certified Gaga teachers in Japan

 

Gaga is a class built on a deep awareness of physical sensation and on looking inward. Filled with rich imagery, it raises the imagination; the class is put together so as to wake several senses at once, and it trains flexibility, stamina, agility, coordination and efficiency of movement. Through playful research - soft against hard, delicacy against explosive force, restrained movement against exaggerated movement - you build your command of shape and speed. Waking the body we already have and carrying that into movement widens what the body can do. Come and move in the studio with us, and feel the joy of dancing.

 

"Gaga people" is the open form of Gaga, the movement language developed by Ohad Naharin at Batsheva Dance Company. It is open to anyone; no dance experience is needed.

 

Mariko Kakizaki (柿崎麻莉子)
From Kagawa, where she spent her childhood as a rhythmic gymnast. She entered the University of Tsukuba intending to become a teacher, but was drawn to dance by the way artists caught and expressed the world each through their own eyes. She danced with Batsheva Ensemble Dance Company (2012-2014) and with L-E-V, the company of Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar (2015-2021), and won the Japan Dance Forum Award in both 2020 and 2021. She returned to Japan in 2021. Alongside choreography for dance, theater and advertising, she runs the culture centre beq, the workshop community GAMAMA, and a children's park project, working to make spaces where people think through the body and grow their trust in it. She is a certified Gaga teacher.

 

Mariko Kakizaki opened our Session Online Theater in May 2020, and her "Dance of Empathy" can be watched on our YouTube channel.

 

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Three Days to a Showing

Sae Onishi and Remi Murai, covering Tatsukuni Ikegami's Thursday class

 

Over the three class days on 1, 8 and 22 October you pick up dance technique and settle the movement into the body. Everything gathered across those three days is then drawn together for a short showing on the final day, 29 October - a slightly forced march of a plan, as the teachers put it themselves.

 

Would you like to try the way we build a body and build a piece? No dance experience is required. Dancers very welcome; anyone who simply wants to move very welcome. Come and find out what kind of world can be made in three days.

 

Sae Onishi (大西彩瑛) and Remi Murai (村井玲美) are covering the Thursday contact class normally taught by Tatsukuni Ikegami of ORGAN WORKS.

 

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Kagurazaka Dance School

A few days, ten or more teachers, one body

 

"There are more dreams in dance than anyone can count," says Ryohei Kondo, who serves as the school's principal. The idea is simple: over a few days you take class after class from different choreographers, each teaching their own technique, their own way into movement. You meet your own body from ten directions at once.

 

Each edition takes a theme. The May 2026 school was built around dance and music - techniques led by music, dance born alongside it, attempts at dance that generates its own music, and sessions that crossed the line between workshop and performance. Past editions have gathered teachers including Motoko Hirayama, Yukio Suzuki, Masako Yasumoto, Kim Ito and Ryohei Kondo himself.

 

Individual classes are usually priced around ¥3,300 each, with multi-class passes available. The programme, teachers and timetable change every time.

 

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Dance Senka

Learn a choreographer's work, then perform it

 

Dance Senka begins from an invitation: dance the work of a choreographer you love. The movement you meet in class becomes a piece, and the piece becomes an experience of standing on a stage - which then feeds back into your daily practice. It is the moment when the rehearsal room turns into a theater.

 

Each course is led by one choreographer working on one piece. Recent editions have been taught by Asami Ida, Naoka Uemura, Yasuyo Omoto, Taiju Matsumoto, Yuko Hashimoto and Sengiku Bando, covering contemporary dance, ballet and Nihon Buyo.

 

What it costs

 

Classes are paid for as you take them; the performance fee is paid ahead of the run. Applications close when the first class of your chosen course begins.

 

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Workshop classes through the year

Some workshops run as a standing series rather than an intensive, and can be joined a single session at a time.

 

Ballet, back to basics - Yasuyo Omoto
First Tuesday of the month, 14:35-16:00, doors from 14:00. A special class with Yasuyo Omoto, who danced as prima of the Tani Momoko Ballet and still performs as its senior principal. For anyone with a year or more of basic training, for anyone returning after a break, for anyone who wants to look carefully at their foundations again, and for dancers coming from other genres. Continuing through 2026.

 

Quantity 1/2 with Breathing - Taiju Matsumoto
Friday mornings, 10:30-11:30. Half the amount of choreography of the Monday and Wednesday classes: floor work with gravity, sequences for awareness through movement, then combinations that move from dancing with the brain to dancing with the whole body and a deep breath.

 

Both are priced with the regular class system: ¥2,500 for a single class, ¥9,600 for a four-class pass valid one month, ¥23,000 for a ten-class pass valid three months, tax included.

 

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Joining a workshop

Book through the class reservation form, or simply write or call. Advance reservation is required for all workshops.

 

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

 

Dates, teachers and themes change with each edition, and the current programme is published in Japanese on the workshop page. If you are visiting Tokyo and want to know what is running while you are here, ask us in English and we will tell you what is on and help you book.