The Performing Arts Exchange Program 2026: BIOTOPE — Camp for Playwrights / Theatre-makers

Photo by SueAnne Koh

Adriana Nordin Manan juggles eight professional roles: writer, translator, playwright, researcher, curator, dramaturg, educator and entrepreneur. Venturing into the arts from a previous career in policy research, she is the founder and artistic director of Cocoon Creative Lab (CCL). Described as part playground and part think tank, CCL works in cultural exchange through language, storytelling and new works incubation to build bridges in a polyphonic world.
In 2023, Adriana debuted as a playwright with “Fault Lines,” her first full-length play which received considerable accolades such as: Semi-finalist, International Scratchpad Series by The Playwrights Realm, New York City (2021); Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Best Original Script; Best Director; and Best of 2023 at the BOH Cameronian Arts Awards (2024). In 2019, her translation of “Pengap” by Lokman Hakim was the first Malay submission to be shortlisted for The Commonwealth Short Story Prize. In 2025, she translated the Mexican classic novel, Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Páramo" from Spanish to Malay.
Currently, Adriana is expanding her creative repertoire into film curation, learning and development as well as language teaching. Overall, she is interested in the intersections of creativity and the empowerment of all sectors of society, especially marginalized groups such as people who are stateless, incarcerated or traditionally sidelined from arts access.
Adriana has a Masters in Politics from New York University and a Bachelor of Arts from Colby College, Maine. Born, raised and based in Kuala Lumpur, she speaks Malay, English and Spanish.

Guelan Luarca is an actor, playwright, translator, and director for the stage. His most recent works are: writing and directing the stage adaptation of Mike de Leon’s modern classic film Kisapmata; a staged reading of his play Dogsblood; adapting and directing a new Filipino translation of Nick Joaquin’s canonical Filipino play Portrait of the Artist as Filipino by Jerry Respeto, performed under the title Quomodo Desolata Es?; writing and directing the stage adaptation of Giancarlo Abrahan’s critically-acclaimed film Dagitab; and writing and directing 3 Upuan, a play about time and grief. He teaches at the Fine Arts Department of the Ateneo de Manila University, and is a founding member and a programmer of the new theater company, Scene Change. He graduated from Hunter College, City University of New York, with an MFA degree in Playwriting, and was inducted last year at the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards Hall of Fame.

Thai theatre maker, actor, and writer based in Bangkok. His work moves between everyday life and quiet magic on stage. He explores how small moments in relationships — between lovers, family, friends, and strangers — reflect deeper rhythms of society. His plays combine original writing and adaptations, with a strong focus on emotional truth and human connection.
Jaturachai has written and directed many works presented in Thailand’s theatre scene. His well-known writing includes Big Head Monster (2013), The Comments (2014), and Monrak Transistor (2022). He also worked on international projects such as Open Waters (2016–2018), a collaboration with Singaporean theatre maker Tan Shou Chen.
Supported by a grant from the National Arts Council Singapore, the project resulted in a script exploring the relationship between Bangkok and Singapore. In 2019, he wrote My Mother’s Kitchen, commissioned by the Embassy of Portugal in Bangkok to celebrate 500 years of relations between Portugal and Thailand.
As a performer, Jaturachai has appeared in productions in Thailand and abroad. One notable work is เพลงนี้พ่อเคยร้อง (This Song Father Used to Sing), which he both performed in and helped develop. The piece premiered in Thailand in 2015 and has toured across Europe and Asia from 2019 to the present.
Jaturachai holds a BA in Advertising from Bangkok University and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management from LASALLE College of the Arts , Singapore.

Photo by Annie Gozard

Jean-Baptiste began his career as an actor in 2008 before moving into writing and directing several stage works, including Cambodge, me voici (L’Asiathèque, 2017). He later published 80 mots du Cambodge (L’Asiathèque, 2023), followed by the memoir La Peau hors du placard (Le Seuil, 2024), which he later turned into a stage performance. In 2022, he directed the film La Langue de ma mère, which received the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the International Festival of Asian Cinemas in Vesoul. In 2026, he is a Villa Albertine fellow in San Francisco.

NISHIO Kaori is a playwright and director, and the artistic director of Bird Park Theater Company. Born in Tokyo in 1985, she spent part of her childhood in Malaysia. She studied the theatre of TERAYAMA Shuji at the University of Tokyo and the theatre of OTA Shogo at the Tokyo University of the Arts, where she completed her graduate studies. Kaori founded Bird Park in 2007 and wrote and directed all of the company’s productions until 2020. That year, the company welcomed three associate artists, allowing her to shift her focus toward playwriting and artistic leadership. Since 2024, she has resumed directing alongside these roles. Her work consistently examines the boundaries constructed between people in society. Her plays Kanro (Sweet Rain Drops from Heaven) (2013), Hey God, Job’s calling you! (2017), and To the End, One by One on Solitude Hill (2019) were nominated for the KISHIDA Kunio Drama Award, Japan’s most prestigious theatre prize. Her works have been presented at major international festivals including Festival/Tokyo, SPAC World Theatre Festival Shizuoka, the Setouchi Triennale, and the Asian Women Directors Showcase in Seoul. Her recent projects include a collaborative research project on Karayuki-san with Malaysian dancer and choreographer Lee Ren Xin, as well as the theatre work She Swims Away Beyond Reach. She has been a fellow of The Saison Foundation since 2025.

Photo by Megumi Oku

Kyle Yamada is a theater maker, dramaturg, and translator. His work often derives from anthropological research into ancient texts and forgotten stories, highlighting the vastness of these stories through the temporary and ephemeral nature of performance. His recent work, "Living Spirits," an adaptation of the Noh play "Aoi-no-Ue," was selected as one of the final candidates of the 2025 Kanagawa Performing Arts Award.
Aside of working as Artistic Director of his own company Allergen Theatre, Yamada is also a member of the Art Translators Collective, a group of translators specializing in the arts, supporting numerous projects as a translator and interpreter. His most recent project is “A CALL TO BEAR ARMS” a research-based performance project focused on the increasing threats of bear attacks in Japan.

Photo by Farhan Rizki

Shohifur Ridho'i (b. 1990) is a writer and theatre director who works at the intersection of performance, research, and curatorial practice. Based in Yogyakarta and Madura, his work examines the everyday body as a site of production, distribution, and negotiation of power, with a focus on how minor gestures mediate social relations and reflect histories. His interests include the intersections between social repertoires, speculation, and historiography, as well as the relationship between representation and presentation in the context of contemporary Indonesian performance. He is the founder and artistic director of rokateater, co-initiator of Lembâna Artgroecosystem (an art collective in Madura, East Java, Indonesia), and Network Coordinator at Garasi Performance Institute, a performance academy and meeting point for performance practitioners in Indonesia.

Photo by Natsumi Makita

Playwright, working mainly in the company “Pepin” from 1999. She works on plays and art-projects expressing peopleʼs alternative behaviors in cities and communities in Japan and abroad. Her recent activities include: directing Stage Art Sector in “Culture City of East Asia 2019 Toshima,” writing and staging “Oesiki Project Tour Performance ʻBEAT,ʼ” being Guest Curator for ADAM Artist Lab in Taipei Arts Festival 2019, directing “Theatre Today” in On Stage Shizuoka (FY2021) and directing “Yoroboshi”(2022), “Otsuya’s Love”(2023) and “The Kitchen of Click-Clack Mountain”(2024) at SPAC.

Photo by Christian Hartmann

Born in 1992, he holds a master’s degree in German Literature from Keio University and completed a Master’s in Dramaturgy at the Theaterakademie August Everding in Munich, supported by a two-year grant from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs. From 2025, he joined the production team at the Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) and contributes to programming the World Theatre Festival Shizuoka from 2026. In parallel, he works as a freelance dramaturg and German-to-Japanese translator, focusing on surtitles.

Photo by Paw Castillo

Marco Viaña is an award-winning actor, director, and designer. He began his career performing male lead roles as a member of the Tanghalang Pilipino Actors Company. He later became part of the pool of Actor-Facilitators accredited by UNICEF, conducting Basic Acting Classes, Forum Theater Workshops, and Children's Art Workshops across the Philippines. Marco has continued to expand his artistic practice through stage and costume design for　Tanghalang Pilipino productions, including Lam-ang, Batang Mujahideen, Sandosenang　Sapatos, Gregoria Lakambini, and Nang Dalawin ng Pag-ibig si Juan Tamad, which was　performed at the 2018 World Theater Congress in Moscow, Russia.　He has since ventured into arts management, becoming an alumnus of the Center Stage US　Artists in Residence (2023) and a participant in the Yokohama Performing Arts Meeting (2024).
Currently, he serves as the Festival Co-Director of The Virgin Labfest and the Associate Artistic　Director of Tanghalang Pilipino, the National Performing Arts Company for Theater. He most　recently participated in the Asian Producers' Platform Camp in November 2025.

Muhammad Abe resides and works in Yogyakarta. He completed his postgraduate studies in Performing Arts and Visual Arts at the Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University. He is the Director of the Indonesia Dramatic Reading Festival and the Deputy Director of the Indonesian Arts and Theater Conference. He is also one of the initiators and producers of Gymnastik Emporium and the producer of the Asia Playwrights Meeting in Yogyakarta 2019. In 2024, he organized a Postdramatic Theater workshop for Indonesian Arts and Theater Conference and served as a facilitator for the Indonesian producers' workshop from 2023 to 2024 for the Kelola Foundation. He also works as an independent producer for several Indonesian performing artists.

Photo by Koichiro Kojima

Based in Kyoto, Keiko Yamaguchi is a theatre maker. She studied European theatre practices and theory at Rose Bruford College. After returning to Japan, she has been involved in numerous international collaborative productions. In 2011, she founded the theatre group BRDG, creating works through interviews and workshops with people she encounters in everyday life. In 2024, she co-created and presented Sali-Sari Portal Café in Manila in collaboration with PETA and Japan Foundation, Manila. From 2021 to 2023, she served as a facilitator for the Tokyo Festival Asian Performing Arts Camp. She was a Saison Fellow for 2023–2024.