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We interviewed with Katsumi Sakakura, the creator of the show The Life of HOKUSAI, which will be the guest of the 6th Istanbul Fringe Festival, which will be held between 13-21 September 2024 this year. It will be staged at ENKA Auditorium on 17 September 2024 in collaboration with ENKA Arts and Istanbul Fringe Festival 2024 on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Japan and Turkey. The show's creator, Katsumi Sakakura (1963), himself a composer, director, choreographer and actor, is, as you might expect, a multi-talented artist. Sakakura, who started karate at the age of five and boxing at university, has created a performance art called Geibu, based on the unique "movement, rhythm and spirituality" of the traditional Japanese martial art Budo. He also created Street Nunchaku by combining Nunchaku, a defensive art he learnt alongside karate, with the hip hop dance moves he began performing in his twenties. He then dev...

©  Laura Gauch Muhammed Kaltuk was born and raised in a conservative Turkish family in Switzerland. After completing his secondary education, he studied medicine and then, at the age of 25, enrolled at the Zurich School of Contemporary and Urban Stage Dance to pursue his passion and dream of a professional career in dance. After making a name for himself in the Swiss hip-hop scene and at major international competitions such as World of Dance, Kaltuk has worked with companies, institutions and festivals such as Theater Basel, Dampfzentrale Bern, Kaserne Basel, Tanzhaus Zurich, Theater Luzern, Theater St. Gallen, Gauthier Dance Company (COLORS Festival), Theater der Jungen Welt Leipzig, Theater Plauen/Zwickau and Breakthrough Festival Zurich. In 2017, Kaltuk founded and became artistic director of Company MEK, which oscillates between hip hop and contemporary dance, cultural and dance traditions, and known and new methods.  Kaltuk creates his works by composing and designing wi...