Cameron McKinney performs at the Men In Dance Show. See video clip here. From an early age, Cameron McKinney had a fascination and love for Japanese music and culture. This led him to the library in middle school, where he began to teach himself how to write Japanese characters. Subsequently he found and participated in a Japanese language immersion camp in the United States. Through his passion for the language, Cameron became conversant in Japanese.

At Middlebury College, Cameron initially envisioned a career as a diplomat, but discovered a love for dance. He merged his two interests into a joint major in Japanese/Dance. While working on his college thesis he learned of renowned Japanese choreographer Toru Shimazaki, who has worked with dance companies throughout Europe, the United States and Japan. Cameron was inspired by the precise athletic movements in Shimazaki’s choreography, and hoped they might collaborate in the future.

Almost a decade later, Cameron approached Shimazaki to partner with him and his New York City-based Kizuna Dance for the 2020 JUSFC-National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment) Creative Artists Fellowship Program. Theirs is one of five JUSFC-Arts Endowment funded projects pairing U.S. and Japanese artists to be featured in Tokyo this summer, as Tokyo hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

In Phase 1 of the project, Cameron traveled to Kobe Jogakuin College last summer, where Shimazaki is the directing professor of dance and founder of Dance Barbizon. Cameron and Shimazaki shared their work and potential ideas for the project: a 30-minute contemporary dance to be performed on August 8-9 at Theater X in Tokyo.

The work will embody the personal histories of U.S. and Japanese dancers. Focused on the special connection these Creative Artists Fellowship projects highlight between U.S. and Japanese artists, the work will portray the bond of friendship that has developed between the two nations over the last several decades by accentuating the similarities – rather than the differences – between the two cultures. Five dancers from the U.S. and five from Japan will make up the ten-person ensemble performing in August.

In May, Cameron will return to Kobe to be hosted by Shimazaki and his dancers. They will rehearse at length each day, finalizing all the details of their choreography and music. The team is considering various ideas from across Japan’s culture and history, including possibly incorporating Gagaku – an ancient form of classical Japanese imperial court music – into the production. Cameron will return to New York to work on the new choreography with his dancers, and they will all travel to Japan together in August.

“The work I do with Kizuna Dance is about sharing my love for Japanese culture,” explains Cameron. “When I first heard about the JUSFC fellowship I thought it was the perfect way to promote cultural ambassadorship between our two countries, and to do that through my own artistic medium, rather than the more typical diplomatic route. It is such an exciting way to share a culture.”

Cameron McKinney performs at the Men In Dance Show. See video clip here. 

To learn more about JUSFC’s Creative Artists Fellowship Program and Grants, visit our website here.

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