Meiko Ando

Region: Toronto Ontario
Generation:
Born 1961, Japan

Bio

“Meiko Ando is a Butoh dancer/choreographer and printmaker who currently lives in Toronto. She completed her BA from the University of Waterloo in arts and dance. After graduating, Meiko went to Japan to perform with a Butoh dance company and researched architectural space and Japanese arts in festivals. Since returning to Canada in 1991, she has choreographed various solo dance performances for dance festivals, theatres and art galleries in Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Mexico City, Xalapa and St. Louis. Ando’s most recent dance was presented at the Heliconian club for Ekphrasis in May, 2017. Ando is also active as a printmaker. She was invited for an artist residency for printmakers hosted by the internationally recognized artist group, Boreal Art/Nature (Quebec) in 2000. She produced prints inspired by three dance performances which she created in a garden, the forest and by a river in L’Annonciation, Quebec. Ando has been exhibiting her prints in Toronto since 1996 in galleries such as Artword Gallery, Creative Spirit Art Centre and John B. Aird Gallery. In 2006 her work was chosen for a juried print show at John B. Aird Gallery. She was a recipient of the Visual Arts Award for Arts Toronto Protégé Honors in 1999. She also participated and exhibited her prints in Nuit Blanche at the Japan Foundation in Toronto in 2012. Some of her publications of her prints include the following: “Woman Critiqued” (University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii, 2006) and “Bad Girls of Japan” (Palgrave Macmillan, N.Y.C., 2005). Since 2008, Ando has been participating in international print shows organized by Rene Arceo in Chicago. Highlights of her print shows include exhibition at Art Gallery of University of Texas, Concordia University (Chicago), Ferguson Art Gallery (Chicago), El Paso Museum of Art (Texas), Casa de los Tres Mundos (Nicaragua), Maidoff gallery (Florence) and Galeria Alfaro Siquieros ( Morelia, Mexico). Her prints are included in art collections in El Paso Museum of Art (Texas), NIU Art Museum, (Illinois), Concordia University (Illinois) and Hispanic Research Centre Arizona State University (Arizona). Much of Meiko’s dance was created by collaborating with musicians and visual artists. Many images of Meiko’s prints are based upon her dance performances. Her art submerges the viewer in a surreal atmosphere of dreams often inspired by old legends and stories.”