Min Tanaka
Japanese dancer and actor (born 1945)
title: "Min Tanaka" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1945-births", "japanese-male-dancers", "japanese-dancers", "living-people", "entertainers-from-tokyo", "male-actors-from-tokyo", "persons-of-cultural-merit"] description: "Japanese dancer and actor (born 1945)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Min_Tanaka" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Japanese dancer and actor (born 1945) ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox person"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Min Tanaka |
| image | Tanaka Min from "Perfect Days" at Red Carpet of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2023 (53348561480) (cropped).jpg |
| alt | cropped headshot of Tanaka at Tokyo International Film Festival 2023 |
| caption | Tanaka in 2023 |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Tokyo, Japan |
| occupation | Dancer, actor |
| years_active | 1966–present |
| :: |
| name = Min Tanaka | image = Tanaka Min from "Perfect Days" at Red Carpet of the Tokyo International Film Festival 2023 (53348561480) (cropped).jpg | alt = cropped headshot of Tanaka at Tokyo International Film Festival 2023 | caption = Tanaka in 2023 | birth_date = | birth_place = Tokyo, Japan | death_date = | death_place = | other_names = | known_for = | occupation = Dancer, actor | years_active= 1966–present Min Tanaka is a Japanese dancer and actor.
Biography
Tanaka was trained in ballet and modern dance, but in 1974, turned his back on these forms. He began his solo career with a series of nearly-naked primarily outdoor improvisational dances that took place throughout Japan, often dancing up to five times a day. For a time in the 1980s, he was associated with Hijikata Tatsumi and butoh, a loose genre of Japanese dance, but now has broken from that framework as well, and no longer uses that term to describe his dances.
From 1986 to 2010, Tanaka hosted dance workshops based in Body Weather, a movement ideology which "conceives of the body as a force of nature: omni-centered, anti-hierarchic, and acutely sensitive to external stimuli." In 1985, Tanaka and his colleagues founded Body Weather Farm, located four hours west of Tokyo, where he taught summer sessions lasting four to five weeks in Japanese and English. Much of the training workshop students received was centered on the labor of workaday tasks, primarily in agriculture. Tanaka taught that performing such tasks in their environments and with their accompanying physical stimulations functioned as a dance student's teacher itself, overturning the tradition of the environment taking on a subordinate role to the dance student's technique. He received the Chevalier of l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the French government in 1989 or 1990.
He continues to experiment with new ways to use the body, including drawing inspiration from farming. Starting in 2002, he began to appear in movies and on television. He won the award for best supporting actor at the 26th Japan Academy Film Prize for The Twilight Samurai.
Filmography
Films
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2002 | The Twilight Samurai | |||
| 2004 | The Hidden Blade | |||
| 2005 | House of Himiko | |||
| 2006 | Tekkonkinkreet | Suzuki a.k.a. Rat (voice) | ||
| 2009 | Heaven's Door | Henmi | ||
| Map of the Sounds of Tokyo | Spanish film | |||
| 2011 | Rebirth | Taki | ||
| 2012 | Gaiji Keisatsu | |||
| 2013 | Return | |||
| The Eternal Zero | Kageura | |||
| 47 Ronin | Lord Asano | American film | ||
| 2014 | Rurouni Kenshin: Kyoto Inferno | Okina | ||
| Rurouni Kenshin: The Legend Ends | Okina | |||
| 2017 | Blade of the Immortal | Mugai-ryū | ||
| Destiny: The Tale of Kamakura | Binbōgami | |||
| 2018 | The Scythian Lamb | Katsumi Ōno | ||
| Vision | Minamoto | |||
| The Outsider | Akihiro | American film | ||
| The House Where The Mermaid Sleeps | ||||
| Modest Heroes | Blind man (voice) | |||
| Ninomiya Kinjirō | ||||
| 2019 | The Great War of Archimedes | Tadamichi Hirayama | ||
| Svaha: The Sixth Finger | Nechung Tenpa | South Korean film | ||
| Children of the Sea | Jim (voice) | |||
| 2020 | The Memory Eraser | Shin'ichi Sugawara | ||
| 2021 | Hokusai | Old Hokusai | Lead role | |
| A Morning of Farewell | ||||
| 2022 | The Unnameable Dance | Himself | Documentary | |
| The Pass: Last Days of the Samurai | Kawai Daiemon | |||
| Yokaipedia | Jizuri (voice) | |||
| Amnesiac Love | Special appearance | |||
| 2023 | Father of the Milky Way Railroad | Kisuke Miyazawa | ||
| Mom, Is That You?! | ||||
| Perfect Days | Homeless man | Japanese-German film | ||
| 2024 | Who Were We? | |||
| The Real You | Wakamatsu | |||
| 2025 | Kokuho | Onogawa Mangiku | ||
| 2026 | Black Ox | Zen priest | ||
| :: |
Television
::data[format=table]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | Ryōmaden | Yoshida Tōyō | Taiga drama | |
| 2014–16 | Gou Gou, The Cat | 2 seasons | ||
| 2015 | Mare | Asadora | ||
| To Give a Dream | ||||
| 2016 | Kyoto Love Story | Sei-san | ||
| 2017 | A Life: A Love | Isshin Okita | ||
| 2019 | Nodoka no Niwa | Ikuo Sakaki | ||
| 2021 | The Supporting Actors 3 | Himself | ||
| 2022 | The 13 Lords of the Shogun | Fujiwara no Hidehira | Taiga drama | |
| Teen Regime | Shigeo Hosaka | Miniseries | ||
| 2024 | House of the Owl | Ryutaro Ogami | Lead role | |
| 2025 | The 19th Medical Chart | Noboru Akaike | ||
| :: |
Awards and honours
- 26th Japan Academy Film Prize: Best Supporting Actor (2003)
- Person of Cultural Merit (2025)
- 38th Nikkan Sports Film Awards: Best Supporting Actor (2025)
- 47th Yokohama Film Festival: Best Supporting Actor (2026)
References
References
- "略歴（箇条書き） - Min Tanaka ｜Rin Ishihara ★Dance★ Official Web Site★".
- (2014). "Seeds of an anti-hierarchic ideal: summer training at Body Weather Farm, 2014". Theatre, Dance and Performance Training.
- "Folha de S.Paulo - Saiba quem é Min Tanaka - 24/3/1995".
- "FiLM DOKUMENTER & DiSKUSi : MiN TANAKA".
- link. Japan Academy Prize
- "隠し剣 鬼の爪". eiga.com.
- "メゾン・ド・ヒミコ". eiga.com.
- "鉄コン筋クリート". eiga.com.
- "ヘブンズ・ドア". eiga.com.
- "アルキメデスの大戦". eiga.com.
- "記憶屋 あなたを忘れない".
- "HOKUSAI". eiga.com.
- (7 August 2020). "吉永小百合、主演映画『いのちの停車場』で初の医師役 松坂桃李＆広瀬すずと初共演". Crank-in!.
- "名付けようのない踊り". eiga.com.
- "峠 最後のサムライ". eiga.com.
- (12 April 2022). "ゴーストブック おばけずかん:下野紘が一反木綿に おばけ声優に杉田智和、大塚明夫、田中泯も 山崎貴監督最新作". Mantan-web.
- "餓鬼が笑う". eiga.com.
- "銀河鉄道の父". eiga.com.
- "こんにちは、母さん". eiga.com.
- Wiseman, Andreas. (14 April 2023). "The Match Factory To Handle Wim Wenders' Tokyo-Set Cannes Competition Entry 'Perfect Days', Film Details & First-Look Revealed". [[Deadline Hollywood.
- "わたくしどもは。". eiga.com.
- "本心". eiga.com.
- "吉沢亮主演・横浜流星共演、映画『国宝』に渡辺謙出演 大河主演俳優そろい踏み 高畑充希・森七菜・見上愛も【コメントあり】". Oricon.
- "リー・カンション主演、禅僧役に田中泯 蔦哲一朗監督「黒の牛」がクランクイン". eiga.com.
- "龍馬伝の出演者・キャスト一覧". The Television.
- "「グーグーだって猫である」ドラマ続編の制作決定、宮沢りえらキャストは続投". Natalie.
- link. Stingray. allcinema
- (27 April 2021). "鎌倉殿の13人:藤原秀衡役に田中泯 「龍馬伝」以来2度目の大河". eiga.com.
- (22 March 2022). "神尾楓珠主演のNHKドラマ『17才の帝国』 追加キャストに柄本明、松本まりから". Oricon.
- "親子役の田中泯・新田真剣佑が真剣勝負、「フクロウと呼ばれた男」ディズニープラスで配信". Natalie.
- (12 June 2025). "松本潤『19番目のカルテ』新キャスト3人発表 新田真剣佑が「初めて医師役に挑戦」".
- (18 October 2025). "王貞治氏ら8人に文化勲章 功労者に坂茂氏ら".
- (28 December 2025). "【映画大賞】「国宝」が史上最多の6冠 主演男優賞は吉沢亮、主演女優賞は広瀬すず".
- "2025年日本映画個人賞".
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