Tanaka was trained in ballet and modern dance, but in 1974, turned his back on these forms.

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 won the award for best supporting actor at the 26th Japan Academy Film Prize for The Twilight Samurai.