Hiroshi Koike

After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, he decided to dissolve the group in 2012; Koike claimed feeling trapped by Japan and Japanese cultural administration spurred his decision. In the same year, the group held the Papa-Tara Final Festival. In June, soon after the dissolution of Pappa TARAHUMARA, he established the Hiroshi Koike Bridge Project (HKBP). Focusing on education, publication, and creation with creativity as the core, HKBP has been strongly aware of "cross-cultural" and "multicultural," and experienced a number of international collaborative projects. Since 2013, HKBP has been working on a theater adaptation of the ancient epic Mahabharata with artists from various Asian countries for 8 years. Other productions of HKBP include: The Restaurant of Many Orders, which is based on Kenji Miyazawa's novel, and World Series, in which Koike deeply deals with social problems today with his unique "sensory approach."

Koike has served Tsukuba Art Center as the artistic director from 1997 to 2004, the Asian Performing Arts Forum as a member of the executive committee in 1998, and Japan Foundation as the member of the Special Donation Council from 2005 to 2011. In 1995 Koike established a school for performing arts, PAI, of which he is the president.

After graduating from university, he worked as a TV director of documentary programs, but left the company after two years. In 1982 he founded Pappa TARAHUMARA with Ogawa Michiko and other friends from college. Koike was involved in all 55 productions of the group as the director, playwright, and choreographer for 30 years until 2012.

Hiroshi Koike (小池博史 Koike Hiroshi born on 25 January 1956, in Japan) is a Japanese director, playwright and choreographer. After his former performing arts group, Pappa TARAHUMARA was dissolved in 2012, he formed Hiroshi Koike Bridge Project (HKBP).