YOKO SEYAMA
Multimedia artist, Scenographer, Set Designer, Bühnenbild
Yoko Seyama creates spaces that transform through light, material and movement.
A Berlin-based Japanese scenographer and multimedia artist, she draws on her backgrounds in architecture and dance to explore space as a living, changing experience. Combining digital elements with natural materials, she creates environments that unfold over time, from theatres and concert stages to museums, galleries and public spaces.
Her scenography spans contemporary dance, ballet, opera, musicals and concerts. Selected credits include Mémoires d’Oubliettes for Nederlands Dans Theater with Jiří Kylián; productions for Staatsballett Berlin, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal and the New National Ballet of Japan; Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin’s 2023 Grand Show; the opening ceremony of Expo 2025 Osaka; and Naniwa Danshi’s 2023 and 2024 concerts.
Her installations have been presented internationally at venues and festivals including Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst, Borås Art Museum, Wood Street Galleries, the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale and MAIIAM.
She holds an MA in ArtScience from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and a BA in Architecture from Musashino Art University, Tokyo. She has received a grant from the Pola Art Foundation and a 2023 Lighting Design Award, and was nominated for the 22nd Hong Kong Dance Awards.
COLLABORATORS
Choreographers, Directors, Artists (alphabetical):
Wolf Bittner / Artist
Jitti Chompee /Choreographer, 18 Monkeys Dance Theatre
Gentian Doda / Choreographer, Staatsballett Berlin
Jean-Philippe Dury / Choreographer, EBB Dance Company, Leipzig Ballet
Pedro Goucha Gomes / Choreographer, Korzo Theatre
Armen Hakobyan and Denis Untila / Choreographer, Aalto Ballet Essen
Frankie Ho / Choreographer, Hook Dance Theatre
Dirk P Haubrich / Composer
Oliver Hoppmann / Creative Director, Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin
Lyndsey Housden / Artis
LEE/VAKULYA / Choreographers, Chen-Wei Lee and Vakulya Zoltan / Hessisches Staatsballett
Iván Pérez / Choreographer, Dance Theatre Heidelberg
Kenta Kojiri / Dancer, Choreographer
Jiri Kylian / Choreographer, NDT
Giorgio Madia / Director, Choreographer, Grand Theatre, Łódź
Sebastian Matthias / Choreographer
Fernando Melo / Choreographer
Yasuhiro Morinaga / Composer
Megumi Nakamura / Choreographer
Takeatsu Nashimoto / Choreographer, Director
Alfonso Palencia / Ballet Director, Stadttheater Bremerhaven
Raimondo Rebeck / Astana Opera, ACDF Uzbekistan
Roberto Scafati / Choreographer, Theatre Trier
Daniel Schorno / Composer
Benjamin Staern / Composer
Lesley Telford / Choreographer, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, Compañía Nacional de Danza, Ballet am Rhein
Takeatsu Nashimoto / Creative Director
Jeroen Uyttendaele / Artist
THEATERS / COMPANIES
Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin, DE
Staatsballett Berlin, DE
Hessisches Staatsballett DE
Leipzig Ballet, DE
Ballet am Rhein, DE
Aalto Ballett Essen, DE
Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, DE
Dance Theatre Heidelberg, DE
Stadttheater Bremerhaven , DE
Theatre Nordhausen, DE
Theatre Trier, DE
Pfalztheate, Kaiserslautern, DE
Nikolaisaal Potsdam, DE
Grand Theatre, Łódź, PL
Nederland Dans Theater, NL
Reisopera, NL
Korzo Theater, NL
Norrdans, SE
Norrlands Operan Umeå, SE
Compañía Nacional de Danza SP
Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montréal, CA
National Dance Company Wales, UK
The New National Ballet of Japan, JP
NOISM, JP
St. Petersburg Theatre of Musical Comedy, RU
Astana Opera, Astana ,KZ
Uzbek National Ballet / Bolshoi Theatre named after Alisher Navoi, UZ
Hook Dance Theatre, HK
EXHIBITION
Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennale (Nigata, JP)
Festival Maintenant (Rennes, FR)
Borås Art Museum (Borås, SE)
LUNA - Urban Night Adventure (Leeuwarden, NL)
Artistree Taikoo Place (HK)
Vilnius Light Festival (Vilnius, LT)
LUMINA Festival of Light (Cascais, PT)
OBLIK (Berlin, DE)
Svetlobna Gverila, Lighting Guerrilla Festival (Ljubljana, SL)
EVI LICHITUNGEN International Light Art Biennale (Hildesheim DE)
Unfolding Kafka Festival, Bangkok Citycity Gallery (Bangkok TH))
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai TH)
Visual Art Week, Argentina (Buenos Aires, AR)
Gallery2 (Berlin DE)
ACUD Berlin (Berlin DE)
TodaysArt. JP, Kobe Art Village Center (Kobe JP)
TodaysArt. JP, Terrada warehouse 'Plane Scape' (Tokyo JP)
Annex exhibition, Pola Museum Annex Gallery (Tokyo JP)
Artifact Festival, STUK 'Plane Scape' (Leuven BE)
Wood Street Galleries (Pittsburgh USA)
Zentrum für Internationale Lichtkunst (Unna DE)
Platform 57 'Plane Scape' (The Hague NL)
5Mm | vijf minuten museum (Eindhoven NL)
Scopiton Festival (Nantes France)
E-pulse festival in Breda (Breda NL)
KAAP Fort Ruigenhoek (Utrecht NL)
STRP Festival, ‘Transient Landscapes’ (Eindhoven NL)
Filmhuis Workspace 10, ZAAL5 (The Hague NL)
TodaysArt 2010 Den Haag (The Hague NL)
MediaLab Enschede ‘Lightwork #6: In Soil' (TETEM Enschede NL)
SonicActsXIII (Netherlands Media Institute NIMk, Amsterdam NL)
E-pulse festival in Breda (Breda NL)
TransNatural, Multiplexart ‘Gardening’ ( Trouw Amsterdam NL)
'Med!aphosis' (Gallery Dom omladine, Belgrade, Serbia)
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My work begins with the character of materials.
Whether natural or industrial, each material holds possibilities for form, movement and transformation. Through close observation, I explore its particular qualities and find ways to give them expression in space.
I approach light as a material in its own right. Through its encounter with other materials, light gains a visible presence and transforms what we see. I am drawn to the threshold between visibility and invisibility: where something emerges, where it disappears, and where imagination begins.
I consider objects together with the spaces around them—the atmosphere they create and the relationships they form with their surroundings. Bringing materials, light and movement into dialogue can turn an existing place into another world. For me, this transformation is a kind of illusion, shifting our perception of the space we inhabit.
In theatre, stage technologies allow me to compose movement and transformation within a predominantly frontal perspective. In installations and public spaces, the viewer’s own movement becomes part of the experience. I imagine how people approach, enter and move through a space, and how each change of viewpoint reveals a different relationship between light, material and form.
Without relying on words or recognisable imagery to define a meaning, I seek to create poetic spaces that remain open to the audience’s imagination—spaces where each person can discover a world of their own.