Colleen Lanki


Region: BC Vancouver
Generation:

Bio

Colleen Lanki has been directing, choreographing and performing internationally for over two decades in shows of every variety. She has a BFA in Theatre Performance from Toronto’s York University and an MFA in Asian Theatre and Directing from the University of Hawaii. From 1995 to 2001, Colleen was based in Tokyo, where she studied nihon buyoh (Japanese classical dance) under master dancer Fujima Yūko (1938–2002), taking the professional dance name Fujima Sayū. She currently studies under master dancer Fujima Shôgo and regularly performs nihon buyoh in both Canada and Japan. Colleen also studied noh dance and chant under Kita Noh School master Ōmura Sadamu. Colleen is the Artistic Director of TomoeArts and has created many interdisciplinary works including Ten Nights of Dream, created with composer/musician Alcvin Ryûzen Ramos; ENa raincity street dance, a site-specific work featuring photos from community photographers; and The Komachi Variations, which played in Vancouver and Tokyo. She is a founding member of Theatre Nohgaku, an international group dedicated to traditional and English language noh. With Theatre Nohgaku she has sung in the chorus of traditional noh plays Sumidagawa and Funabenkei, performed the title role in Crazy Jane, a noh based on a Yeats poem, and toured the US in the new noh play Pine Barrens. Selected directing and choreography credits include: direction of the English-language premiere of Kishida Rio’s avant-garde masterpiece Thread Hell (guest artist at U. of Hawaii), direction of Shadow Catch, a new-music chamber opera set in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (Pro Musica); and choreography for Mishima Yukio’s kabuki play The Sardine Seller in Portland, Oregon.

www.tomoearts.org  |  www.colleenlanki.com