Chiharu Shiota: Two Home Countries

Chiharu Shiota is a contemporary artist best known for her site-specific, ephemeral installations in which fragments of memory are woven within webs of yarn that consume entire exhibition spaces. Shiota studied painting in Japan before training in performance art in Berlin, where she continues to live and work today. Her performances often present her physical body as a canvas, coating it in red paint or smearing it with earth. In contrast, her yarn installations allude to an absent body, with lines of thread representing intangible emotions, memories, and human connections all tangled together. Shiota has exhibited widely throughout the world, and her works are in numerous collections. Since 2003, Shiota has designed stage sets for performances at major theaters, including the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Geneva (2024), Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels (2011), and New National Theatre in Tokyo (2009).

Leon Ingulsrud is a bilingual theater artist and director with over 35 years of international experience. Raised in Japan, he is one of the few American directors to have trained and worked with the renowned Suzuki Company of Toga under Tadashi Suzuki. A founding member and former co-artistic director of the acclaimed SITI Company, Ingulsrud has directed and adapted numerous works across the globe. His innovative stage adaptations include three distinct versions of Moby Dick, each tailored to its cultural context, and a bilingual reimagining of Yukio Mishima’s Hanjo, which premiered in 2017. Ingulsrud has translated over a dozen Japanese plays into English, and his translation of Hanjo was endorsed by esteemed scholar Donald Keene. His current project involves adapting Mishima’s novel into a solo performance script, drawing on his deep cross-cultural expertise and commitment to theatrical exploration.

Major Curda is a multi-disciplinary Korean-American actor/storyteller who has appeared and collaborated on various projects for Theatre, Film, Television, and Voiceover. Recent acting credits include The White Chip at MCC Theatre; You Don’t Belong Here, a new horror film with Shane West; NAATCO's Romeo & Juliet as Romeo; and Broadway’s KPOP! Major especially enjoys supporting new stories, having collaborated on various developmental projects at Ma-Yi Theatre Co., NYSAF, NYTW, One Year Lease Theatre Co., and Mercury Store. Major can also be seen in the CW’s hit series Riverdale as Dilton Doiley, and in Netflix’s Atypical as Arlo. Major is a proud volunteer actor at the 52nd Street Project and founding member of Mixed Nuts. Alumnus of Carnegie Mellon, SITI Skidmore, and Cherubs.