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Photo by Dan Bellman

2026年上演ラインアップ

Think Being

Annual Axis 2026 (248 words)

Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank will, from 2026 onward, develop its activities through the introduction of an Annual Axis—a yearly framework established to shape the contours of its practice in relation to society and its audiences. The Annual Axis functions as a conceptual structure that traverses multiple works and activities. Comparable to an annual programme concept in a theatre or the overarching theme of a festival, it provides a shared perspective and direction through which each year’s artistic endeavours are articulated and connected. The Annual Axis for 2026 is Think Being. We understand thinking and being not as separate acts, but as a single condition in which they occur simultaneously. Thinking itself is already a mode of being: a state that comes into existence within specific conditions. To think is not to move toward conclusions, nor to recover meaning as an act of resolution. Rather, it is an attitude that accepts the process through which thought arises, lingers, and continues to waver—without subsuming it under evaluation or purpose. In place of the word “existence,” we use the term Think-Being. Think-Being refers to a sustained state in which thought inevitably is—within place, time, and relationships—without being affirmed or denied. Rather than presenting thought as a theme, we seek to expose the very structures through which thinking comes to be and persists. This year is conceived as a period in which our works and activities render visible the conditions under which thinking happens, allowing that state to remain open, ongoing, and unresolved.

Artist's Statement (219 words)

We Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank explores the contradictions of the performing arts, which as collective creation is completed by the way people control each other. The idea behind the two-person (Ayaka Ono & Akira Nakazawa) direction is that we can easily deny and affirm each other and to create the mechanisms themselves. These mechanisms are fostered through ongoing research and development, experimenting with all the distances in the relationship. The distance of the relationship between actor and playwright, dancer and choreographer, performer and director, where power arises, is modified and the state is invented for each production. It applies equally to the relationship of seeing and being seen with the audience. The audience is the viewer of the performance, but the audience itself is rarely seen. However, it is only for the convenience of the performance to make the audience, including the audience seats, invisible, and a mechanism is adopted to accept the audience as a visible presence. Through the productions and activities as a whole, we express the fact that all definitions bracketed by double quotation marks (means frames) in contemporary society have the potential to retain value outside of their framework, and hope that as many audiences as possible who see and hear them will be energised to try to create something new that transcends existing values.

Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank (526 words)

Founded in 2012 as a performing arts collective of Ayaka Ono & Akira Nakazawa who makes dance, theatre and new mechanisms of performing arts. By integrating the established concepts of the performing arts with new mechanisms of their own research and development, they explore the state of the performing arts in the contemporary world and continue to experiment with creating diverse values. With communication arising from the unique environment and relationships at the root of their creation, they are actively engaged in both continuous collaboration with creation members and collaboration with different artists. Major productions (year of premiere in brackets) include Love Dialogue Now (2017), Green-Collar (2018), Native (2018), Theatre like Theatre but Theatre (2018), Original Landscape (2018), Sharing Behaviour (or Closed Circle) (2019), Words are not enough in Theatre (2019), Physical Catharsis (2019), Atoms are Everything and Everywhere (2019), Modest Difference (with Shuntaro Matsubara) (2019), Uea (with Ryo Ikeda) (2020), Ice and Winter (2020), Alice in Wonderlight (with Shuntaro Matsubara) (2020), Balance: Physical Catharsis (2021), Theatre of Saviour (2021), Theatrical Monument (2021), Futurism / Future is (with Shuntaro Matsubara) (2021), Hawawa (with Ryo Ikeda) (2022), Street Replay Music Balance: Physical Catharsis (2022), Views (with Shuntaro Matsubara) (2022), Themselves (2023), See You Again (2023), Sey (Misspelling of Say) (with Ryo Ikeda) (2023), Dance Dance Revolutions (with Shuntaro Matsubara) (2023), Shu Matsui and Ourselves (Original by Jérôme Bel’s Pichet Klunchun and Myself (2005)) (2023), Words and Shakespeare’s Birds (2024). Main career highlights include 8th Sengawa Theatre, Theatre Competition: Grand Prize (2017), Shimokita Wave 2018: Elected (2018), Takamatsu Artist-in-Residence 2018: Elected (2018), Toga Theatre Competition 2019: Second seats for Outstanding Director Award (2019), Doramakan Showcase 2019: Participated (2019), 29th Shiomokitazawa Theatre Festival, Performing Arts Created with Upcoming Young Artists, Code Code Code ’19: Director (2019), Toyohashi Arts Theatre PLAT, Dance Residence 2019: Elected (2019), Bird Theatre Festival 13, Support project for young performing arts creative groups: Elected (2020), Rohm Theatre Kyoto x Kyoto Art Centre, U35 Creative Support Programme, KIPPU: Elected (2020), 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, Joint project for artistic exchange, AND21: Elected (2021), Toyohashi Arts Theatre PLAT, Theatre Created with High School Students 2021: Director (2021), Tokyo Arts and Space, OPEN SITE 6: Elected (2021), Osaka Creative Chishima Foundation, Creative Activity Grant for U30: Elected (2021), ANB Tokyo, ANB Studio Program: Member (2022), KYOTO EXPERIMENT 2022 Shows: Participated (2022), Yokohama Dance Collection 2022, Competition I: Kinosaki International Art Centre Prize and the French Embassy in Japan with Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Prize for young choreographers (2022), Professional College of Arts and Tourism, Dance Workshop Practice Class B: Guest Lecturer (2023), Kinosaki International Art Centre 2023 Artist-in-Residence Programme: Elected (2023), Kichijoji Theatre, Dance Club 2023: Lecturer (2023), Kyoto Art Centre Co-programme 2023: Elected (2023), DANCE BOX Domestic Dance Study Abroad at Kobe 9th, Dance Makers Camp I: Invited Artist (2023), Kichijoji Dance LAB. vol.6: Director (2023), The Film School of Tokyo, Language Expression Course, Language School 3rd Term, Seminar Course, Creative Class: Full-time Lecturer (2023–2024), Dance Base Yokohama: Resident Artist (2023–2024), YAU STUDIO Y-base: Resident Artist (2024), PARA, Performance Design Theory: Full-time Lecturer (2024).

Ayaka Ono (207 words)

1/2 of Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank. Theatremaker and choreographer based in Tokyo, Japan. Born on 30 December 1991. From 2016 to 2019, participated in Kirari Fujimi Regional Company ACT-F, led by Junnosuke Tada. As a dancer and performer, has appeared in works including: Mika Kurosawa 6:30 AM (2015); Momoko Shiraga Picture Book Without Pictures (2013, 2015); Nobuyoshi Asai / Moonlight Mobile Theatre The Neverending Story (2016); Koji Ozono & Noriyasu Hashimoto / Kaeru P Super Suha (2017); Arata Mino After Film (2018); Pichet Klunchun MI(X)G (2018); Kota Yamazaki Dance Sprint (2020) and Dance Teleportation (2020); Megumi Yamashita / Hitogoto. Cultivating Truth as One Cultivates Flowers (2021) and Growing While Drifting Apart (2022); Kitakyushu Performing Arts Center Creation Series IE-kei (Family Lineage), written and directed by Shu Matsui (2023). Also participated in live performances for ClariS, including ClariS 1st Budokan Concert — The Two Masks and the Lost Sun (2017) and ClariS 3rd Hall Concert in Maihama Amphitheatre: Over the Rainbow (2018). Member of Drama Education Lab DEL at Chofu Sengawa Theatre (2018–2020). Member of Shu Matsui’s Specimen Room (2021). Member of Komaba Agora Theatre Workshop Training Program Using Theatre (2021). Member of ANB Tokyo ANB Studio Program (2022). Contributor to Higeki Kigeki magazine, September 2023 special issue “The 12 Young Artists Who Will Shape the Future of Theatre.” Resident Artist at Dance Base Yokohama (2023–2025). Creator for “Wings”: International Dance Project by Dance Base Yokohama for Emerging Creators (2024–2025).

Akira Nakazawa (193 words)

1/2 of Ayaka Ono Akira Nakazawa Spacenotblank. Theatremaker and choreographer based in Tokyo, Japan. Born on 4 June 1992. As a videographer, worked on the production of archive footage of Ko Murobushi, and participated in works including Yo Nakamura’s Riverside Hotel (2014) and Faces (2015). As a director, participated in Keita Shirai / Onsen Dragon’s reading performance Mourning, Lights, Saitoh (written by Yu Harada) (2022). As a performer, has appeared in works by Fabien Prioville / Fabien Prioville Dance Company The SOMA Project (2015); Takahiro Fujita A-S (2016); Ryo Ikeda / Yumei Fes (Festival) (2016) and Shime (Closed) (2017); Arata Mino After Film (2018); Masashi Nukata / Nuthmique Wanna Be End (2018); Hirotaka Fukui Desktop Theatre (work-in-progress) (2019); Ryo Motohashi / Ungeziefer Leucochloridium (2019) and Uber Boyz (2021); Yuichiro Konno / Busstrio One Montage (2022); and Yohei Hosokawa / Horobite Aden // Ial (a denial) (2023). Member of Drama Education Lab DEL at Chofu Sengawa Theatre (2018–2020). Member of Shu Matsui’s Specimen Room (2022). Member of ANB Tokyo ANB Studio Program (2022). Completed Theatre School Murinkan Online (2023). Contributor to Higeki Kigeki magazine, September 2023 special issue “The 12 Young Artists Who Will Shape the Future of Theatre.” Saison Fellow I of The Saison Foundation (2021–2024). Resident Artist at Dance Base Yokohama (2023–2025). Creator for “Wings”: International Dance Project by Dance Base Yokohama for Emerging Creators (2024–2025).