This section takes a slightly different approach from Practical Insights and Organization Interviews, focusing not on practices themselves, but on the language used to describe them.
The terms we encountered in UK inclusive dance contexts cannot always be translated directly into Japanese. A simple one-to-one correspondence between an English word and a Japanese equivalent can sometimes obscure the role that word plays in practice, along with the values and assumptions embedded within it.
What follows is not a definitive glossary of translations.
Rather, it is a series of reflections based on key terms that appeared repeatedly throughout the research. Using these words as points of departure, we explore what they were doing within practice, how they might be expressed in Japanese, and where translation remains incomplete or unresolved.
This is an attempt to approach translation not as the task of finding the “correct” equivalent, but as a way of revisiting practice and opening up new ways of thinking.
How to Read This Section
The Japanese terms presented here are not intended as final translations, but as provisional footholds for reflection.
In some cases, a single English term is not matched with a single Japanese equivalent. Where something remains difficult to translate—or where retaining the English term itself feels meaningful—we have chosen to leave that complexity visible.
The aim is not to determine the “right” translation, but to consider what each word was doing within the practices from which it emerged.
■ Reframing Movement and Aesthetics
In inclusive dance practices, the question was often not how to move in the same way, but what could be shared across different bodies.
Rather than aligning outward forms, artists explored how intentions, qualities, and experiences of movement could be communicated between people with different physicalities. In this context, translation becomes more than a linguistic issue—it becomes a question of dance aesthetics itself.
Translation
Provisional Japanese translations
翻訳／訳し直し／別の身体で立ち上げること
Translation / Re-translation / Bringing something into being through another body
What it meant in this research
Here, translation did not simply refer to replacing one word with another.
It appeared as a way of describing how movement, intention, or artistic material originating in one body might be received, interpreted, and reimagined through another body and under different conditions.
At Stopgap, dancers were not expected to copy one another’s movements exactly. Instead, a central aspect of the creative process involved exploring how a movement could be translated through each dancer’s own body. Verbal explanation was only one part of this process. Demonstration, observation, and time spent discovering individual pathways into movement all supported this ongoing practice of translation.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese word honyaku (translation) tends to suggest the transfer of meaning from one language to another.
In practice, however, the term encompassed much more than language. It referred to the transmission of movement, sensation, relationships, and creative intentions across different bodies and circumstances. The challenge lies in finding a word that can hold all of these dimensions at once.
Texture
Provisional Japanese translations
質感／動きの手触り／呼吸や重さを含んだ感覚
Texture / the feel of movement / a sensory quality shaped by breath and weight
What it meant in this research
Texture was not used simply to describe surface appearance or tactile sensation.
In the context of Stopgap’s practice, it referred to qualities such as direction, breath, weight, speed, momentum, and the way a movement emerges into being. What was being shared was not a finished shape, but something closer to the feel of movement itself.
The goal was not for different dancers to arrive at identical positions. Rather, it was for different bodies to inhabit a similar quality, atmosphere, or energetic state within a shared moment. The term texture functioned as a way of naming and discussing these less tangible aspects of movement.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese word shitsukan (texture) is perhaps the closest equivalent, but it can sound overly neat and abstract.
Used on its own, it often emphasizes appearance or sensory impression while overlooking the physical dynamics that dancers were describing. In practice, texture included breath, weight, direction, force, and energetic flow—not merely how something looked or felt, but how it moved and existed within the body.
■ Opening Language and Receiving Presence
Creating an inclusive space requires more than policies or good intentions.
The ease with which people can participate is shaped by the language we use, the ways we invite engagement, and the kinds of responses we recognize and welcome. Language is not only a tool for explanation; it is also a way of creating entry points into a shared space.
Open Language
Provisional Japanese translations
開かれた言葉／入り方を閉じない言い方／特定の身体を前提にしない言葉
Open language / language that does not close off ways of entering / language that does not assume a particular kind of body
What it meant in this research
Open Language did not simply mean using simple or accessible words.
Rather, it referred to language that does not assume a single way of moving, understanding, or participating, leaving room for individuals to enter from where they are.
At Stopgap, for example, facilitators might avoid giving a directive such as “touch the floor.” Instead, they would offer an invitation like “reach downward as far as your body wants to go today.” The language did not prescribe a specific movement but left space for each person’s body to respond differently.
At BLINK, participants shared how they were feeling through visual boards and object-based check-ins. People did not have to explain themselves verbally. If they did not want to speak, they did not have to. If they were not ready to answer immediately, they could return later. What was open was not only the language itself, but also the forms of response that were considered valid.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese phrase hirakareta kotoba (“open language”) can sound somewhat abstract.
On the other hand, translating it as “easy language” risks reducing the concept to simplicity or clarity alone.
What Open Language encompasses is not only accessibility of understanding, but also a refusal to predetermine a single pathway into movement, participation, or response.
Voice
Provisional Japanese translations
声／声を持つこと／見られ、聞かれること
Voice / having a voice / being seen and heard
What it meant in this research
Voice was neither simply the ability to speak nor a slogan about self-expression.
At Magpie Dance, people spoke about how “we have a voice, but there are people living in care homes who do not.” In this context, voice referred not only to speaking, but also to being recognized, being listened to, being visible, and to the responsibility of receiving and communicating the experiences of those whose voices are less likely to be heard.
In some performances, dancers themselves spoke directly about what a work was about. These moments were not merely explanatory. They were also acts of claiming and exercising voice in front of an audience.
Why it is difficult to translate
Translating voice simply as koe (“voice”) tends to focus attention on speech and sound.
Terms such as “the right to speak” capture only its institutional dimension, while phrases such as “the power of self-expression” can become overly abstract.
What Voice encompassed in these practices was broader than speaking. It involved having one’s experiences received, making less visible lives and perspectives perceptible, and allowing those experiences to reach society through artistic work.
■ Supporting Safety and Collective Practice
Safety is not simply about preventing accidents.
It is about being able to feel at ease, to say “no,” to maintain necessary boundaries, and for those facilitating a space to take responsibility for risk, care, and limits in concrete ways.
In the inclusive practices we encountered, safety was not an additional consideration applied after the fact. It was designed as a foundational condition for creative work and collective practice to flourish.
Safeguarding
Provisional Japanese translations
セーフガーディング／尊厳と安全を守る実践／境界線を支えること
Safeguarding / practices that protect dignity and safety / supporting boundaries
What it meant in this research
Safeguarding is a term that resists straightforward translation into Japanese.
It refers not only to preventing harm or managing risk, but also to the ongoing practice of considering how facilitators share information, establish procedures, recognize boundaries, and determine when intervention is necessary.
At icandance, safeguarding was closely connected to communication with families, risk assessments, agreed spatial rules, and the sharing of individual needs and information. Even in spaces that appeared highly open and free, there were clear procedures for stopping activities when necessary and for planning together with parents and carers.
At Magpie Dance, questions of personal boundaries, distance, and voice were woven directly into both creative practice and facilitation.
Safeguarding was not understood as a way of avoiding challenge. Rather, it was a way of making challenge possible—through continually considering how far to go, when to pause, and with whom decisions should be discussed.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese phrase anzen kanri (“safety management”) tends to emphasize accident prevention and risk control.
Meanwhile, translating it as “protection” can suggest a fixed relationship between those who protect and those who are protected.
What Safeguarding encompassed in these practices extended beyond physical safety. It included dignity, boundaries, consent, the freedom to refuse or withdraw, and the responsibility to protect and respect each person’s voice. It was a practice for sustaining a shared space over time.
Co-delivery
Provisional Japanese translations
共同進行／共同で場を動かすこと／支え合いながら場を成り立たせること
Co-delivery / jointly holding a space / sustaining a space through shared responsibility
What it meant in this research
Co-delivery differs from a model in which one person teaches while another provides support.
Instead, it describes a way of working in which people in different roles collectively sustain and shape a shared environment.
At DanceSyndrome, for example, regular artist development sessions were supported by multiple dance artists who shared responsibility for the programme. Through ongoing meetings and communication, they ensured that individual sessions remained connected to a broader process rather than becoming isolated events.
Importantly, Co-delivery did not mean that everyone did the same thing.
Different people held different responsibilities: facilitating activities, supporting participants, maintaining the overall structure, or responding to individual needs. Precisely because these responsibilities were distributed, individual voices and ideas could be meaningfully supported within the process.
This was particularly visible in iCreate. When a dancer took on a choreographic role, surrounding dance artists worked to ensure that the choreographer’s ideas and decisions could genuinely shape the work. Supporting leadership so that it does not become isolated was itself understood as part of co-delivery.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese term kyōdō shinkō (“co-facilitation”) can sound limited to the role of leading a workshop or meeting.
Meanwhile, kyōdō jisshi (“joint implementation”) may suggest little more than dividing tasks among a group.
Yet Co-delivery referred to something broader. It described a way of sharing responsibility for a space so that no single person carried it alone. Facilitators, supporters, observers, and participants each contributed differently, collectively sustaining the conditions in which the work could happen.
Emotional Safety
Provisional Japanese translations
感情的安全性／情緒的に安心できる状態／安心して挑戦できる土台
Emotional safety / a state of emotional security / a foundation for safe experimentation and growth
What it meant in this research
Emotional Safety was not simply about creating a calm or pleasant atmosphere.
At icandance, it was described as the starting point for everything else. Feeling safe allows people to gradually reveal how they are feeling, become aware of their bodies, build relationships with others, and engage with new experiences.
What mattered was not avoiding challenge.
On the contrary, emotional safety was understood as the condition that makes challenge possible.
One-to-one relationships with dance partners, gathering in circles, and collective support from staff all contributed to creating environments where children and young people could express themselves, take risks, and eventually step into public performance.
Why it is difficult to translate
The common Japanese translation of “psychological safety” often evokes organisational theory or workplace training.
The emotional safety discussed in these practices felt different. It referred less to intellectual reassurance and more to a sense of safety experienced through the body and developed through relationships.
It included feeling that one’s physical and emotional state would be accepted, that others would neither come too close nor remain too distant, and that support would remain available when taking risks.
In this sense, emotional safety was not simply a feeling. It was a set of relational conditions that enabled people to participate, experiment, and grow.
■ Reconfiguring Decision-Making and Culture
Inclusion is expressed not only through values and principles, but also through who participates in decision-making and where authority, responsibility, and resources are located.
Creating an inclusive organisation is not simply a matter of introducing a new role or policy. It may require rethinking the structures through which decisions are made and support is distributed.
How this is put into practice emerged as one of the key themes of this research.
Assembly
Provisional Japanese translations
アセンブリ／判断の場／必要に応じて立ち上がる協議の場
Assembly / a space for decision-making / a forum convened as needed
What it meant in this research
The term assembly, as used by Candoco, referred to more than a meeting.
It emerged from a broader organisational effort to avoid concentrating artistic direction within a single role or individual.
Rather than appointing a permanent Artistic Director, Candoco envisioned an assembly as a space where the people needed for a particular curatorial or artistic decision could come together and collectively take part in the decision-making process.
It functioned less like a regular committee and more like a structure that could be convened when specific decisions were required.
The aim was not to eliminate leadership.
Rather, it was to redistribute the work of leadership by ensuring that decisions could be informed by multiple perspectives, experiences, and forms of expertise rather than being vested in a single position.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese word kaigi (“meeting”) feels too light and informal, while kyōgikai (“committee” or “council”) can sound bureaucratic and overly institutional.
Both risk obscuring the flexibility that Candoco was attempting to create.
What mattered was not simply gathering people together, but continually reconsidering who should be involved in a given decision and how authority should be shared. For this reason, we understand assembly here as a “space for decision-making” or a “forum convened as needed.”
Equitable Culture
Provisional Japanese translations
一人ひとりに応じて組み替える文化／必要に応じて支え方を変える文化
A culture that adapts to individual needs / a culture that reshapes support according to circumstance
What it meant in this research
Equitable Culture pointed to something that goes beyond simply making participation available to everyone.
Rather than placing everyone under the same conditions, it involved continually asking: What does this person need? Under what circumstances can they thrive? What kinds of support, working arrangements, or opportunities will allow them to contribute fully?
These ongoing adjustments were not treated as exceptions. They formed part of the organisation’s culture.
At Stopgap, this culture could be seen in long-term employment opportunities, regular company classes, the provision of support workers where needed, assistance during touring, and the creation of pathways for younger dancers to develop professionally.
The goal was not to fit people into an existing system. Instead, the system itself was adjusted—sometimes gradually, sometimes substantially—so that people could continue to work, dance, learn, and grow.
This way of thinking underpinned both artistic practice and organisational life.
Why it is difficult to translate
The Japanese word often used for equity is kōhei (“fairness” or “equality”), but this can suggest treating everyone in the same way.
What was being described here was almost the opposite.
The emphasis was not on uniform treatment, but on changing conditions according to need. Decisions about working arrangements, support structures, training opportunities, career pathways, staffing, and resource allocation were continually revisited and adjusted.
The meaning of Equitable Culture lay not in a fixed principle, but in this ongoing practice of adaptation.
The fact that no exact Japanese equivalent can be found is not a failure.
Within that very gap lies the richness of practices that have not yet been fully articulated in words.
This page is not intended as a dictionary that resolves those gaps.
Rather, it is offered as a provisional foothold—a place from which to continue searching for language, and to keep thinking through what these practices make possible.