Ishida Dance Company
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?—a painting by Paul Gauguin in 1897, depicts disparate states of being.
Like Gaugin’s painting, Ishida Dance Company prompts existential questions through dreamscapes that celebrate universal themes of our psyche—betrayal, belonging, loss and love.
Ishida Dance Company presents world-class contemporary dance performances consisting of new works by up-and-coming choreographers that are innovative and unique experimenting with dance and contemporary narratives in dance theatre to support accessibility for audiences to gather meaning in performances. Such programming extends an invitation towards introspection and embracing Otherness.
Ishida Dance Company presents original poetic narratives told through the beauty of the human form and works by up-and-coming and established choreographers consisting of high caliber contemporary dance performances. These works invite self-reflection and encourage communal regard by prompting existential questions. Choreographers and composers premiere new works as well as past works that have never been performed for audiences in Texas. As the Company becomes more established, it will tour nationwide and internationally to provide performances which transmute thinking or everyday being.
Ishida Dance Company also provides free educational outreach performances and workshops to at-risk youth and marginalized communities to cultivate and enrich appreciation for contemporary dance and to provide interactive engagement opportunities with the art form that nurture self-esteem, collaboration, creativity, and social-emotional well-being.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Brett Ishida is a fourth generation Japanese American—Yonsei—raised in a typical valley town of Porterville, California. She grew up working and dancing in between trees on her grandparents’ citrus ranch...
Brett’s love for dance inspired her to move away from home at age fifteen when she received a full scholarship at the Kirov Academy and later at SAB. She then danced with Boston Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, where she first choreographed, and Les Grands Ballets Canadiens where she toured performing around the world; she collaborated in new creations with choreographers and performed principal and soloist roles in repertoire by Nacho Duato, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Ohad Naharin and Didy Veldman, among others.
Enchanted by wordplay, Brett received a BA from UCLA in English with emphasis in Creative Writing: Poetry and later a MA in Montessori Education from St. Mary’s College. Brett was an educator and administrator in Texas, California, and in Greece devoted to promoting and implementing experiential arts in education and advocating for children with special learning needs.
Brett launched Ishida Dance Company in the Spring of 2019 in Austin, Texas bringing together her two worlds of experience.
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