Here, Jstages.com introduces two major arts/theatre festivals set to add a sparkle to the autumn season in West Japan.
(1) Toyooka Theatre Festival 2025
Clockwise from top-left: “The Window of Spaceship ‘In-Between’” (c)Hideto Maezawa、“Beautiful Ridiculous Scenario of the Sorcerer’s Apprentices” (c) Dan Bellman、“The star has no sound −Clockwork Universe−” (c) igaki photo studio、“Yellow Airship”、Butoh performance “Butoh Tajimafudoki _Kinosaki reitou engi”
This annual festival started in 2020. Since then it has increasingly attracted more and more people not only from the Kansai area, but also from Tokyo and the Kanto area, as well as from abroad.
Running from Sept. 11–23, it is being held at 11 venues in the Tajima district of Hyogo Prefecture, including the popular hot-spring towns of Kinosaki and Shinonsen.
Overall, this year’s playlist features 10 official programs selected by the festival director Oriza Hirata — a leading contemporary dramatist who is also the founder and artistic director of the Kinosaki International Arts Center — as well as another 12 official programs produced by the festival and 28 fringe programs chosen from approximately 140 candidates.
During the festival there will also be many street performances and events, fringe showcase programs from numerous groups, and various international exchange projects amounting to about 85 programs in total.
This year’s festival theme is “En” — not money, but another kanji character meaning “performing, relationship, event”. Through these different meanings of En, the organizers hope to provide their guests from far and wide with many chances to meet and communicate with other people.
In addition, to draw the area’s residents to the festival, there will be a wide range of events and shops run by local people and companies — with many this year especially aiming to appeal to foreign visitors and tourists.
As the festival’s director, Oriza Hirata made the following comment about the aim of Toyooka Theatre Festival 2025.
Oriza Hirata
“I selected programs to appeal to many types of people who come to the festival from outside the Tajima/Hyogo area. So I aim to attract people from other areas and countries to visit this area and also enjoy coming to see theatre here.
“I want to make this festival something like a trade fair rather than just an event introducing international leading-edge programs. So I aim at being a kind of fringe festival which attracts foreign theatre producers, especially from other Asian countries.
“This year, though, we want to emphasize that this is a theatre festival happening here in Tajima, so we will be selling special products from this area and have markets full of local products.
“One of the strong points of the Toyooka Theatre Festival is that it is strongly connected to tourism. So, through these art events we want many visitors to become familiar with this Tajima area and come to love it and hopefully return just as tourists.
“Another big plus about this area is that Toyooka City is home to the Professional College of Arts and Tourism, in which students study theatre and dance. In Toyooka there are also 31 elementary and junior high schools with drama in their curriculum. This is very rare in Japan.
“So as well as running this theatre festival, we are also working to create a wider theatre environment incorporating several elements, such as theatre education, the college and tourism — as so far it seems to be going very well.”
Clockwise from top-left: Outdoor Performance vol.3 in Beach Musical「Humming “paradise”」、“From S Plateau” (c) igaki photo studio、Kinosaki International Arts Center AIR Program 2025/26 “The Bathhouse of Honest Desires” (c) Hsuan-Lang LIN, provided by National Theater & Concert Hall、“Serenade of the Sea” (c) 『海のセレナーデ』（2025年/金沢21世紀美術館）、“The Last Geishas: Re-creation” (c) igaki photo studio
Toyooka Theatre Festival 2025 runs Sept. 11-23 September
For more details, visit
https://toyooka-theaterfestival.jp/en/
(2) Aichi Triennale 2025
A Time Between Ashes and Roses
Clockwise from top-left: ”Human Pavilion – A Comedy” / Illustration Kogani Oshiro、”Enemy of the Sun”、”kuste”/ hoshifune profile photo、”BRAIN ” (c) Hikaru Toda、”My body, my archive” (c) Sarah Imsand
Since 2020, the Aichi Triennale arts festival has been held for three years around Nagoya City, and now the sixth year’s event returns there, running for two and a half months from Sept. 13.
With its emphasis on showcasing a wide range of contemporary arts exhibitions, this year’s event features 54 artists from both Japan and overseas, as well as nine performing-arts programs.
As the festival’s curator, Akane Nakamura — who is also the producer of the renowned globe-trotting theatre company Chelfitsch — explained her choice of the line-up for Aichi Triennale 2025, saying:
Photo:Takuya Matsumi
“This time, we have our first foreign Artistic Director in Hoor Al Qasimi, who is the president and a director of the Sharjah Art Foundation in Sharjah, in the United Arab Emirates. So I selected this year’s nine programs together with her.
“In today’s performing arts world there seems to be quite a tendency toward performances which mix exhibitions and performance in what’s called ‘performative installation’. Actually, though, I think genre distinctions, such as theatre/dance and/or exhibitions are becoming less clear-cut.”
Meanwhile, the artistic director, Hoor, said in her statement titled “A Time Between Ashes and Roses” that she has moved away from binary thinking and using the arts to offer perspectives and ways of thinking that exist in a middle zone – between exhibition and performance – instead toward re-examining the relationship between humanity and nature.
“Consequently, this is the theme of this year’s Aichi Triennale festival. I believe this concept would not come out from Japanese who still live with the idea of consumption in this post-colonial era.
“So I did my programming with the following three points in mind:
1. Relationships between nature and humans — How can we reconstruct a coexistence between the human body and the environment, so that humans don’t dominate nature? How can we restore our primary connection with animals and plants around us, and the fundamental cultures and communities we share?
2. War and memory — Is there any continuity between past wars and current wars? Are there any disconnection between them? How should we regard wars which destroyed cities and human’s lives?
3. Society in balance — Reflecting on global power structures and their relationship to resources and territory. How can we change and create a new environment after colonial rule and imperialism?
Clockwise from top-left: “Eternal Labor” (c) OLTA、”Speak Slowly and It Will Become a Song“、”Paradise Rumour” (c) Toaki Okano、”Bird” (c) Pol_Guillar
Aichi Triennale 2025; “A Time Between Ashes and Roses” runs Sept. 13 – Nov. 30
For more details, please visit