Kizuna Dance will perform a mixed repertory concert for six performers, featuring works from across the company’s six year history, all works rooted in various aspects of the Japanese language and culture. The company’s 2020-2021 season will include E.X.P.L.O.D.E, an intense solo inspired by the seminal 1988 animated film AKIRA; Rebirth, a hyperphysical interpolation of both visual artist Manabu Ikeda’s work of the same name and Japan’s recovery effort from the 2011 Tohoku natural disasters; Kyosho, a cinematic ensemble work by commissioned guest artist LajaMartin; and Sizable, our newest guest commission by Hannah Garner that superimposes the principles of bonsai trees onto the human body. The evening will also include a special collaboration between Artistic Director Cameron McKinney and renowned Japanese choreographer Toru Shimazaki. The project was commissioned by the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission and will premiere alongside the 2020 Olympic Games’ events in Tokyo in August 2020. Artistic Director Cameron McKinney’s movement language blends a streetdance background with capoeira and contemporary floorwork to create scenes of organized chaos and structured impulsivity.