ABSTRACT
Tanaka Min is an innovator in international contemporary dance who has extended the legacy of the radical experiments of the avant-garde dance movements of the 1960s into an experimental practice unlike that of any other major dancer/choreographer. He has performed thousands of improvised outdoor solo dances. The French Ministry of Culture awarded him the title of Chevalier des arts et lettres in 1990. He has collaborated with writers such as Felix Guattari and Susan Sontag, and visual artists such as Giulio Turcatto, Murakami Takashi, and Noriyuki Haraguchi. He is a unique figure in the dance world in that each aspect of his dance practice improvised dance, training, and choreographic methodology is informed by his daily life as an organic vegetable farmer. Tanaka's work is characterized by periodic renewal and experimentation rather than the development and mastery of formalized structures.
