Kitamura Akiko is a choreographer, dancer  and  director. Her background includes ballet, street dance,  and  Indonesian martial arts. She founded her dance company, Leni Basso, in 1994 while studying the Graduate School of Letters, Arts,  and  Sciences at Waseda University, from where she also received her MA. She stayed in Berlin as a trainee of the Agency for Cultural Affairs Overseas Training Program for Artists in 1995. Since her return to Japan, she has been implementing her own theory of choreography, the Grid System,  and  her own directing style that mixes  and  develops dancing, light, rhythm  and  image.

She was commissioned to present her work at the 2001 Bates Dance Festival  and  2003 American Dance Festival (ADF) in the United States. The “enact oneself” that she choreographed for the ADF, was selected the Best Dance of the Year in North Carolina. One of Kitamura’s masterpieces, titled “finks” (2001), has been performed in more than 60 cities internationally  and  awarded Best Dance Piece of the Year by the Montreal Hour Magazine in 2005. She also created “ghostly round” for Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin which was highly esteemed in many countries globally.

In 2010, Kitamura started her solo career  and  engaged in international co-production projects including “To Belong” with Indonesia  and  “Cross Transit” with South East   and  South Asian countries. These productions were also performed at the Japan Society in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.,  and  many other cities. Moreover, the “vox soil” presented in 2018  and  first performed at the Kanagawa Arts Theatre (KAAT), won the 13th Japan Dance Forum (JaDaFo) Awards Grand Prix. In 2020, she started a project titled “Echoes of Calling,” crossing the borders of Ireland, Central Asia  and  Japan.

Kitamura studies ‘the use of the human body as a medium’ in practical theatre, applying theories about the human body, direction,  and  dancing. Based on ‘physical thinking’ through the spread  and  deepening of dance expression, she keeps looking for the appeal of human bodies  and  the good communication generated from creative activities  and  art performance.