Editing CanAsian Dance Festival (section)

== Artistic Director ==

'''Denise Fujiwara'''

Denise Fujiwara is a choreographer, dancer, actor, dance impresario, and teacher with over 28 years of professional experience.

She began her interesting career in childhood, as a gymnast, when she competed internationally for the Canadian Modern Gymnastics team. 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). Here she was instrumental in the creation of a diverse body of work for the now-defunct but still notorious company that danced across Canada for 10 years.

In 1991 she formed her own company, [http://asiancanadianwiki.org/wiki/Fujiwara_Dance Fujiwara Dance Inventions], to house the development of her solo projects. To date her six solo dance concerts, Spontaneous Combustion, Vanishing Acts, Sumida River, Elle Laments, Brief Incarnations and Komachi have garnered praise across Canada. Her work has toured to festivals in the United States, South America, Europe and Asia. Her recent foray into ensemble choreography resulted 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" by the Toronto Star.

In addition to her career as a dance artist, Ms. 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. In 1997 she co-founded the CanAsian Dance Festival where she is the Artistic Director.

Fujiwara's approaches to the disciplines of dance technique, improvisation, performance and choreography have developed over more than two decades of intensive research, practice and performance. She has had remarkable mentors and teachers including Tokyo Butoh master Natsu Nakajima, Montreal dance pedagogue Elizabeth Langley, the now disbanded Mangrove Dance Collective of San Francisco, the American theatre director Anne Bogart, and the late choreographer Judy Jarvis.

{{From|http://www.canasiandancefestival.com|http://www.canasiandancefestival.com/about.php|http://www.canasiandancefestival.com/art_dir.php}}