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http://www.lisakusanagi.com/

@lisa.kusanagi

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Invididual

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Lisa Kusanagi is a Japanese-born interdisciplinary artist working across dance, performance art, film, and visual art. Her choreography, film, and installation art have been presented in over 30 countries at venues including Film at Lincoln Center, Harlem Stage, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Miami Light Project, Perez Art Museum Miami during Screendance Miami Festival, Eye Filmmuseum (Amsterdam), Cineteca Nacional (Mexico City), and the BAFTA-qualifying 10th Aesthetica Short Film Festival (York).

Her work fearlessly pursues visceral vulnerability that merges rigorous form with quirky humor, bold physicality, and social commentary. Fjord Review remarks on her dance performance "mastery," describing it as "vigorous and fluid, full-out physical, and free of formal technique," while CriticalDance lauds her "wit, skill, and a mind lustrous and inexhaustible." Her dance films, itsy bitsy and kopitoto, have earned notable recognition, including an invitation to present kopitoto at the International Festival of Contemporary Dance at La Biennale di Venezia in 2020, Second Place in Amsterdam daily newspaper Het Parool's Best of 2021 in Theaters, and the 2022 Lawther/Graff No Violence Award at the Oscar-qualifying 60th Ann Arbor Film Festival. The Los Angeles Times writes, "kopitoto is lighthearted and weird, invoking hidden forest creatures and the life of a wintry Japanese wood itself. It's the unholy alliance of Willy Wonka and an '80s Residents video (without the menace but with 100 times the technical skill)."

As an educator, Kusanagi has held a tenure-track position as Assistant Professor of Dance at the Universidad de las Americas Puebla (2015-2017) in Mexico and served as a full-time faculty member of Theater and Dance at J. F. Oberlin University (2020-2023) in Tokyo, Japan. She has also worked as a guest artist at institutions and festivals worldwide. Most recently, she led a screendance workshop for 40 high school students, commissioned by Miami Light Project in partnership with Miami Theater Center for Screendance Miami Festival 2026. Her pedagogy centers on cultivating empathy across difference through the integration of theory and embodied practice.

In recent years, she was commissioned by Miami Light Project for its signature Here and Now program to premiere a new dance, PINKY PROMISES, in 2024; the production sold out all three performances, prompting the theater to add additional seating after opening night. In 2025, she was selected for Flow's inaugural Creative Artist Residency, where she created a two-hour immersive installation and dance, One Last Dance, and presented HAPPY HOUR, a solo installation exhibition that merged video, film, and sculpture during Miami Art Week and Art Basel Miami 2025. She is a recipient of the 2025 Miami Individual Artists Grant from the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, as well as 2023 and 2025 Pola Art Foundation Fellowships in Japan. 

Currently, she is developing several new works in Miami: Violets are blue…, a new dance and installation work commissioned by Live Arts Miami for their LALA WIP program, to be performed at the Koubek Center (May 2, 2026); a commissioned film for the 305 International Improv Festival, filmed across Miami and Costa Rica, premiering in Costa Rica (May 16, 2026); and a new site-specific dance piece commissioned by Pioneer Winter Collective for their Grass Stains program, to be performed at The Bass Museum of Art (May 21, 2026). She has also been selected for a CAP@SRT residency at Sandrell Rivers Theater, where she will develop a new evening-length dance work. 

She holds an MFA in Dance from Hollins University (VA) in partnership with the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts (Germany), The Forsythe Company (Germany), and the American Dance Festival (NC/NY), a BA in Dance from Sonoma State University (CA), and an AA in Fine Arts from Cypress College (CA).

Background:

Art Lover, Dance Lover, Dancer, Video Artist, Installation Artist, Performance Artist, Choreographer, Director, Producer, Arts Administrator, Curator

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