Hiroaki Umeda is a pluridisciplinary artist : choreographer, dancer, sound, image and lighting designer. His work is both minimal and radical, subtle and violent, and very much in touch with his contemporary Japanese roots. Born in 1977, he was inspired by seeing a Saburo Teshigawara’s solo dance performance when he was at Nihon University’s College of Art, Department of Photography. His dance life started at a KARAS workshop. In parallel he took lessons in classical ballet and hip-hop. Since 2000 he started to make his own pieces and histablished his own company “S20”. He is also the author of video pieces and he is collaborating actively with other field artists such as musitian Toshimaru Nakamura, video artist Takehito Koganezawa and video maker Octavio Iturbe. Nwadays, Hiroaki Umeda is one of the most outstanding young Japanese choreographers receiving international attention.