Degenerate Art Ensemble (DAE) is a Seattle-based multi-art performance company founded in 1999 by dancer and Guggenheim fellow Haruko Crow Nishimura and composer Joshua Kohl. Their work fuses live music, butoh-inspired physical theater, and large-scale visual design into productions that draw on punk, comics, cinema, and Japanese folklore. Over more than two decades the group has given over 500 performances across ten countries, collaborating with figures such as Robert Wilson and the Kronos Quartet. DAE received a Creative Capital Award in 2013.
The world premiere of the new work Anima Mundi took place on February 14, 2026 at Moore Theatre in Seattle as part of the STG Performing Arts Series.
DAE announced that Anima Mundi will also be presented in August 2026 at the MikuLove festival in Mikulov in the Czech Republic.
The Anima Mundi project reached the final of the National Dance Project Grant Award for 2025.
The production Skeleton Flower was presented in March 2024 at ODC Theater in San Francisco.
The collaborative project Boy mother / faceless bloom was presented in November 2023 at New York Live Arts as part of Performa Biennale with support from the Dia Art Foundation.
