Born 1960 in Japan. Active as an artist since 1988, moved to New York in 1993. His work encompassing such varied formats as photography, video, dance, installation and performance has been showcased in over 300 exhibitions worldwide at venues including Centre Pompidou, Museum Of Modern Art Frankfurt, PS1, and Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Through his works challenging individual perception, Hirakawa addresses such topics as physicality, gender, sexuality, and art itself while focusing on restrictions and taboos brought along by social systems. He produced two films for director Lawrence Weiner in 2008-2010. Through his activities as an artist, producer and curator, he has been suggesting new human knowledge, an expansion of perception, and social systems with an eye to future cultural evolution. Is recently broadening his scope of activity to people around the world that share a common awareness with "TODAY IS THE DAY", a visionary foundation set up in Hiroshima with the aim to create possible models for the world of tomorrow.

Michael Rother is a composer and multi-instrumentalist (primarily guitar, keyboards and electronic treatments) renowned across the world for his contributions to the development of a unique and innovative experimental German music since 1971. Rother was a member of Kraftwerk and started his own projects NEU! with Klaus Dinger in 1971 and the band Harmonia in 1973 with the Cluster musicians Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Starting from 1976 Rother released nine solo albums. His first three albums were co-produced by sound engineer legend Conny Plank and the first four albums all feature Jaki Liebezeit (of CAN) on drums. In his career Rother has also collaborated with a number of international musicans such as Brian Eno, Red Hot Chili Peppers/John Frusciante, Secret Machines/Benjamin Curtis, Herbert Groenemeyer, Steve Shelley/Sonic Youth - to name a few. Many contemporary bands claim to have taken inspiration from Rother's music.

Ando embarked on a career as a dancer after meeting Kuniko Kisanuki in 1989, and appeared in numerous dance performances choreographed by Akira Kasai and Kota Yamazaki among others. While choreographing and performing her own solo pieces since 1997, Ando also starred in Hideki Noda's pieces with NODA.MAP, an opera with Robert Lepage and conductor Seiji Ozawa, and Ryuichi Sakamoto's opera "LIFE". In 2001, she was discovered by William Forsythe and joined the Ballett Frankfurt. Having performed 36 different pieces with the Forsythe, Ando now enjoys a worldwide reputation as a leading dancer and central member of The Forsythe Company. In Japan, she continues to work on her own projects while collaborating with other dance companies as a guest performer or choreographer.