Oguri tops list of Los Angeles-based USA Fellows

Dance · Music · Theater · Visual arts


Chicago-based United States Artists (USA) has selected its annual fellowship class of 45 artists and collaboratives, across disciplines and selected from all corners of the United States, who each receive an unrestricted $50,000 awards.

A native of Japan, Oguri became inspired to dance after meeting Butoh founder Hijikata Tatsumi in 1983. He started performing in 1985 with famed dancer Min Tanaka’s company Mai-Juku and began performing solo dance in the avant-garde scene in Tokyo. He also became Min Tanaka’s lighting designer. A founding member of Body Weather Farm in Hakushu in Yamanashi prefecture west of Tokyo, Oguri practiced traditional organic farming, experiencing the rhythms and cycles of this most human lifestyle. The connection of the human body to nature is a foundation of Oguri’s dance.

In 1991 Oguri moved to Los Angeles and formed Body Weather Laboratory (BWL) LA with Roxanne Steinberg. He toured extensively in California, and nationally as well as in Europe, South Africa and Japan. In 1993 Oguri formed his own dance company that has performed at Grand Performances, UCLA, Long Beach Museum of Art, Highways, Barnsdall Arts Park, California State L.A., Japan America Theater and the Getty Museum and other venues. More Oguri bio here.

Grantees here:

Oguri – Dancer & Choreographer – Venice
Tony Marsh – Ceramicist – San Pedro
TNEG (Elissa Blount Moorhead, Arthur Jafa, Malik Sayeed) – Filmmakers – Baltimore & Los Angeles
Wayne Shorter – Composer – Los Angeles
Luis Alfaro – Playwright – Los Angeles
My Barbarian (Malik Gaines, Jade Gordon, Alexandro Segade) – Performance Art Collective – New York & Los Angeles
Cauleen Smith – Multidisciplinary Artist – Los Angeles

More on USA and its 2018 grants here.

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