Kunji Ikeda

Kunji Ikeda (池田 勲二 he/they) plays with physical communication to grow physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing within his communities across Turtle Island. Their fearless political work explores our communities most pressing political ideas and has earned multiple awards and nominations for performance and choreography. Ikeda has trained intensively with One Yellow Rabbit and has offered his diverse creative lens to dance, theatre, choir, and musical ensembles across Canada. Ikeda is the Artistic Director of Cloudsway Dance Theatre based in Mohkinstsis (also known as Calgary), and is honoured to be pursuing a life of connection and empathy.

Sansei: The Storyteller was supposed to be a small experiment to see if I could merge contemporary dance, spoken word poetry, and humour. The work has now been produced 27 times across Canada while sharing the story of the Japanese Canadian Internment… as a comedy! The work has led to sharing stories, audience connection, and generating conversation around present day fear-inspired political topics.