Shu Kinouchi
(creator, choreographer, dancer)
Hailing from a suburban town near Yokohama, Japan, Shu Kinouchi is a ballet dancer and multifaceted artist. He began his training at the Mayumi Kinouchi Ballet Studio at the age of 3, and went on to train at the Hamburg Ballet. As a teen he was a member of the Studio Company at the esteemed American Ballet Theatre in New York City. He has been a company dancer of Benjamin Millipied's contemporary company L.A. Dance Project since 2020. With LADP, he has performed works from Benjamin Millepied, Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber, Janie Taylor, Jill Johnson, Madeoine Hollander, Dimitri Chamblas, Salia Sanou, and Bella Lewitzky, and at the Theatre du Chatelet, La Seine Musicale in Paris, Sydney Opera House, at the Joyce in NYC, and Museum of Islamic Art and East West/West East in Qatar and more.
Fascinated by the intersection of ballet and the bone manipulations in martial arts, Shu aims to blend these diverse styles into a unique expression of movement and to blend the styles of dance, theatre, and performance art. He also made some Dance NFTs to challenge commercialization of dance. Recent creations include choreography in collaboration with Janie Taylor, former principal ballerina New York City Ballet, for an evening for Martha Becket’s Amargosa Opera House 56th anniversary. His next solo performance piece "This Could Be You" has been workshopped at Dancer Create at LADP and will be further workshopped in the fall.
Formerly a member of Houston Ballet and Tulsa Ballet, Shu has had the privilege over his career of of collaborating with esteemed choreographers like Aszure Barton, and William Forsythe, Jessica Lang, Stanton Welch, Nicolo Fonte, Christopher Wheeldon, Ben Stevenson, Kazuyuki Futami, Melody Walsh, Ma Cong, Matthew Neenan, Jodie Gates, Ronald Hynd, Susan Jaffe, Connor Walsh, Oliver Halkowich, and Marcello Angelini among others.
As a freelance dancer and artist and model, photos of Shu by Daniel Chen won the Best of PhotoVogue twice in 2023 and the experimental dance film SHU (周）by Mike Schwartz won the Audience Choice Award at the LA Film Festival. He has danced at VDL Research House with Madeline Hollander's Devotion and Volta Collective's experimental work.