Asa Ito
Asa Ito is Director of the Future of Humanity Research Center at the Tokyo Institute of Technology’s Institute of Innovative Research, and Visiting Scholar at MIT (2019), specializing in aesthetics and contemporary art. After initially intending to become a biologist, she turned her academic focus to the arts while in her third year at university. She obtained her PhD in Literature in 2010, having studied aesthetics, fine arts, and culture at the University of Tokyo Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology. As author, Dr. Ito’s major works include “Me no mienai hito wa sekai wo do miteiru no ka” (How Do People Without Sight See the World?, Kobunsha), “Domoru karada” (The Stuttering Body, Igaku-Shoin), “Kioku suru karada” (The Remembering Body, Shunjusha), and “Te no Rinri” （Ethics of touch, Kodan-sha）. Her work was recognized with the 42nd Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities in 2020.

Yuko Nakamura
Yuko Nakamura was born in Tokyo in 1977 and graduated from Keio University’s Faculty of Letters as a Philosophy major. Following her work as an editor at a philosophy publisher, she joined TV MAN UNION. She is involved in the creation of many narrative documentaries that dive past the surface of the modern world, treating topics such as art and architecture, philosophy and more. Her films include “Memories of Origin: Hiroshi Sugimoto”; “A Room of Her Own: Rei Naito and Light” (official selection at 2017 Canadian International Documentary Festival Hot Docs 2017); TV documentary WOWOW “Memories of Origin: Contemporary Artist Hiroshi Sugimoto” (finalist for International Emmy Award for Arts Programming 2012); NHK “Illusory Tokyo Project: Three Potential Dreams of the Capital” (winner of Galaxy Honors for programs recommended 2015); NHK “Architecture Knows: Postwar 1970 as Seen From Landmarks,” and more.
In Theater Commons Tokyo ’19, she directed the reading performance of Susan Sontag’s “Alice in Bed.” Her long serialization in literary magazine Subaru, “Mothering Our Voice, Our Care in Modern Society,” has finally been published in Dec, 2020 as a single author for the first time.

Aya Momose
Born in Tokyo, 1998. Artist. Using video as a method to record the performance, Momose attempts to rethink the imbalance between camera operator and subject in her work. In recent years she has held solo exhibition “Voice Samples” (Art Gallery 1, Yokohama Museum of Art, 2014) and has participated in following group exhibitions: “Sensou-Ga Studies” (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum B-Gallery, 2015), “Artist File 2015 Next Doors: Contemporary Art in Japan and Korea” (The National Art Center, 2015-16), “Roppongi Crossing 2016: My Body, Your Voice” (Mori Art Museum, 2016). In 2020 Momose held a solo exhibition “I.C.A.N.S.E.E.Y.O.U” and co-produced “New Crystal Palace” exhibition with artist Mai Endo. She is also expanding her inquiry into the field of gender and sexuality.

Chiaki Soma
Representative Director of NPO Arts Commons Tokyo, Art producer. Chiaki was the first Program Director of Festival/Tokyo, Japan’s leading performing arts festival, from 2009-2013, as well as the first Director of Steep Slope Studio in Yokohama from 2006-2010. She served on the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Culture Council Cultural Policy Subcommittee from 2012-2015. In 2015, she received the Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Since 2016, she has been a Specially Appointed Associate Professor, College of Contemporary Psychology, Body Expression and Cinematic Arts, Graduate School of Contemporary Psychology of Rikkyo University, Tokyo; since 2017, she has served as the chairperson of the Theater Commons Tokyo Executive Committee, as well as its director. She is also involved in theatrical curation for the 2019 edition of the Aichi Triennale.