Denise Fujiwara

With Fujiwara Dance: Canticle for Rain, Conference of the Birds, I Eat the Stars, Komachi, Lost and Found, Love Learn Listen, Noppera-bō, Sumida River, Valley of Shadows, and Waiting for Bardo(t)

2025 marks Denise Fujiwara’s 47th year as a dance artist. Born in Tkaronto/Toronto, she choreographs, performs, teaches and dramaturgs.

She began her interesting career in childhood as an athlete. She was a Canadian champion for four years in a row and competed internationally representing Canada on its national Rhythmic Gymnastics team in two World Championships in the 70’s. Upon completing an Honours B.F.A. in Dance at York University, she became one of the founders of T.I.D.E. (Toronto Independent Dance Enterprise) a company composed of choreographer-performers that danced across Canada for 11 years. She created her first solo concert, Spontaneous Combustion, before its notable dissolution in 1990.

She formed Fujiwara Dance Inventions in 1991 to house the development of her solo concerts which toured across Canada and to festivals in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. In 1993 she was accepted for mentorship under Tokyo master artist Natsu Nakajima. She immersed herself in Butoh’s arcane practices and became a beginner again. Butoh challenged the very foundations of her understanding of what dance is. Her solo performance and choreography deepened and expanded.

In 2006 Fujiwara became curious about applying the keen principles of solo choreography to ensemble work resulting in Conference of the Birds, a work for 9 dancers and 3 musicians that was called, “– the best thing to premiere at the (fFIDA) festival in many a year”, and NO EXIT, “- so precisely performed it needs no words”, by the Toronto Star. International commissions include Cuenta las Estellas, for la Compania Nacional de Costa Rica and a work for eX…it! Festival’11 in Germany.

For Eunoia, her multimedia adaptation of Christian Bök’s award-winning book of poetry, she challenged herself to create a work using the text as the actual score for the dance. Eunoia sold out Harbourfront Centre’s WorldStage premiere run, received three Dora nominations, was named one of NOW’s Top 5 Dance Shows of 2014, and continues to tour nationally.

Fujiwara works in film and television. Walls, a CBC Television documentary about her life and work by celebrated filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa, won the 1995 Gemini Award for Best Performing Arts Program. She has created several short films; Noppera-bo, won a One-Reeler Short Film Competition 2020 Award of Excellence, Los Angeles, and Valley of Shadows which has won 7 international awards for best cinematography, both with dance artist/filmmaker William Yong.

She co-founded CanAsian Dance in 1997 where she volunteered, served on the Board of Directors and then as Artistic Director until 2022. Through her 25 year commitment to CanAsian, she worked to promote and present world-class dance artists working in Asian practices and aesthetics. She supported the development of Canada-based choreographers with the commissioning and presentation of 32 original works through her KickStart programme there.

In 2013 she received the Toronto Arts Foundation Muriel Sherrin Award for international achievement in dance and in 2014 The Theatre Centre gave her a Tracy Wright Global Archive research award and the opportunity to do research while walking the 88 Temples Pilgrimage in Shikoku Japan. In 2024 she received the Canada Council’s Walter Carsen Prize for Excellence in the Performing Arts and lifetime achievement.

Denise is deeply grateful to the many, many people who so generously and skillfully collaborated to support all of these activities, allowing them to germinate and flower.