Tadashi Suzuki

Tadashi Suzuki (鈴木 忠志, born June 20, 1939) is a Japanese avant-garde theatre director, writer, and philosopher. He is the founder and director of the Suzuki Company of Toga (SCOT), and organizer of Japan’s first international theatre festival (Toga Festival). With American director Anne Bogart, he co-founded the Saratoga International Theatre Institute in Saratoga Springs, New York. He is the creator of the "Suzuki method" of actor training, which emphasizes stylized body work and physicality drawing from dance and elements of traditional Japanese theater. Suzuki was general artistic director of Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) (1995~2007), an international committee member of the Theatre Olympics; a founding member of the BeSeTo Festival (演劇祭), jointly organized by leading theatre artists from Japan, China and Korea; and, chairman of the Board of Directors for the Japan Performing Arts Foundation, a nationwide network of theatre professionals in Japan.