Nagao Akemi (she/her) is a Berlin-based BIPoC choreographer, dance artist, and slowist whose practice investigates the intersections of somatics, care, and resistance. She earned her Masters in Choreography (maC) from HZT Berlin in 2021. Rooted in an anti-capitalist and decolonial sensibility, her work explores how slowness, rest, and embodied attention can serve as political tools for reclaiming agency and building inner sanctuary—especially for marginalized bodies. Since 2015, she has developed performances that navigate the politics of vulnerability, fatigue, and the bodys refusal to perform within oppressive structures. Her current research asks how dance can function as a site of self-repair, and how softness and slowness can become collective strategies for survival. Through pop-infused aesthetics and choreographies that embrace fragility and humor, she creates spaces that challenge normative expectations of productivity and virtuosity.
Nagao Akemi
- Contact person :
- akemi nagao
- Position :
- choreographer, dancer, performer, slowist
Last update : 19 Sep. 2025
Works
Saturday Digestion
2020 - ongoing
© Burning Steps
An invitation to collectively rest, relax, and daydream!
Hoste & Director: Nagao Akemi and Sabrina Huth
You are not a machine, nor a slave to capitalist production industry. You are a divine human being. Please rest, meditate, daydream!
Our practice Saturday Digestion facilitates an open space that invites us to slow down and process the exuberant information we take in on a daily basis. As the crises of capitalism continues to intensify and our nervous systems are in danger of permanent overload we provide a clear structure of doing less and at the same time becoming more sensitive and attentive to our individual and collective needs and the ecologies we co-inhabit. We plunge into that which is not yet known and experiment with a way of co-existing that allows us to dream about post-capitalist futures.
Saturday Digestion aims to stimulate creativity and resilience through a practice of collective resting, sharing and letting go of what is too tight or could be cleared out. Inspired by Barbara Dilley's Contemplative Dance Practice (CDP) and recent research on the autonomic nervous system, each session is framed by a combination of meditation practice, movement practice, verbal/non-verbal individual reflection and collective exchange.
The participants' needs, interests, wishes, and means of artistic expression actively feed into the process. Based on the embodied experience we discuss the potential of active rest as a political action against the capitalist culture of working hard to the point of exhaustion and its associated social injustices.
Sabrina Huth and Nagao Akemi are Berlin based dance artists and choreographers who met during their studies at HZT Berlin. Thriving within a strong artistic collaboration they have been developing a contemplative movement practice in which they explore active rest as a source of inspiration and form of resistance. Since 2020, they co-facilitate regular Saturday Digestion sessions within different settings such as at HZT Berlin, Studium Generale UdK (Berlin), Lake Studios, NPO Dance Box (Kobe), Shikoku Gakuin University (Kagawa), Kunsthaus KuLe (Berlin) and more.
Grandmothers
2023
© Roman Hagenbrock
Choreography and Dance: Johanna Ackva and Nagao Akemi
Composition: Evelyn Saylor
Fabric and Costume: Bettina Melt
Light: Susana Alonso, Grandmothers Team
Technical support: Aiko Okamoto
Performance Stills © Anna Agliardi, Roman Hagenbrock, Aïsha Mia Lethen
Video Documentation © Diethild Meier & Sonia Dipir, Roman Hagenbrock, Max Hilsamer
DIAMOND - The Crossing Point of Money and Spirituality
2021
© Nagao Akemi
Direction, choreography, camera, video editing: Nagao Akemi
Co-choreography, dance, voice: Lyllie Rouvière
Costume: Federico Polucci
Composition, video post production: Michael Berentsen Tuttle
Space: Yassu Yabara
Dramaturgy: Max Lindemann
Co-research: Segawa Tetsumi
Camera: Noam Gorbat
Technical director: Andreas Harder
Technical Support: Ingmar Steinfurth, Knut Polster und Michael Rautenberg
Adviser: Christiane Berger, Wanda Golonka
Mentor: Isabel Robson, Meg Stuart, Melanie Jame Wolf
Photo: Elma Riza
PR: Katja Wiegand, Judith Brückmann und Talea Schuré
Kind support by Deutscher Bühnenverein/Landesverband Berlin, Deutschlandstipendium, Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes