All fall in for autumn’s bounty of performing arts festivals

After summer’s scorching heat and sweltering humidity, at last we can look forward to autumn’s more refreshing weather in what’s known as Japan’s art season. At this time, along with the arrival of fall’s cooler breezes, theatre festivals are traditionally held around the country from September. So to help you plan where to go and when, here’s a preview of three of the major events: Tokyo Festival 2024; Toyooka Theater Festival 2024; and Kyoto Experiment 2024.

(1) Tokyo Festival 2024
Runs: September 15 (Sunday) – 29 (Sunday)
Venues: Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre (TMET), Global Ring Theatre (next to TMET) in Ikebukuro, Toshima Ward
More details: https://tokyo-festival.jp/2024/

Programs:

“Sannin Kichisa Kuruwa no Hatsugai” by the Kinoshita Kabuki

This contemporary Kabuki troupe founded and led by
Yuichi Kinoshita since 2006 creates youth-orientated Kabuki along with contemporary theatre directors. Kinoshita typically supervises transforming the original stories to the present day, while his collaborating directors stage them as vivid new Kabuki works in which the actors often wear modern clothes. This time one of the company’s masterpieces, “Sannin Kichisa Kuruwa no Hatsugai” by the great Kabuki playwright Kawatake Mokuami (1816–93), returns to TMET after nine years with Kinoshita’s long-term collaborator Kunio Sugihara again directing.

“Virtual Disorder” by Noruha

The festival also sees the return of “Virtual Disorder” by the Noruha company that was a great success at TMET in 2022. Though it is a contemporary work, “Virtual Disorder” is based on two classic plays; one is the Kyogen (traditional comic play) “Natorigawa” and the other is the Noh (traditional play) “Funabenkei”. Through these two, Noruha examines the loss of both physical and metaphysical aspects of life in our modern world.

“Metamorphosis of a Living Room” by chelfitsch & with Dai Fujikura and Ensemble Nomad

This is the first collaboration between Toshiki Okada, the globetrotting theatre director, playwright and founder of the  avant-garde chelfitsch theatre company, and the internationally acclaimed composer Dai Fujikura. The work, written by Okada, had its world premiere at the prestigious Wiener Festwochen in Austria in May 2023 and this will be the first production here. With the music group Ensemble Nomad and some actors often on stage together, the play depicts a family who are suddenly driven out of their house.

“Let’s Turn the Table” by CONDORS

The popular all-male dance troupe CONDORS will welcome all-comers in Ikebukuro to join them in a festive dance program at the Globe Ring Theatre, the large open space next to TMET that used to be called West Gate Park. It’s a free event, so let’s have fun and soar away dancing with CONDORS.

During the festival period, there will be various kinds of events happening around TMET, including music concerts, food stalls, exhibitions, fringe performances, talks and workshops for both adults and children.

(2) Toyooka Theater Festival 2024
Runs: September 6 (Friday) – 23 (Monday)
Venues: Various locations around Toyooka City in Hyogo Prefecture
More details: https://toyooka-theaterfestival.jp/en/

As its unique forte, this Kansai autumn highlight combines a leading large-scale performing arts festival with wide-ranging tourism appeal. Since its launch in 2020 the annual event has — despite being canceled in 2021 due to covid — attracted increasing numbers of theatre lovers to its wide range of productions and free street performances along with the area’s nature, hot springs and historic culture. This year, under the theme “Watch Meet Wander”, Toyooka Theater Festival 2024 features some 70 indoor and outdoor programs. These include:

“Chair IL POSTO” by mum&gypsy theatre company

This international collaboration between Japan and Italy is the result of a joint project by seven Italian theatres and festivals. It is based on the impressions and experiences of the company’s founder, playwright and director, Takahiro Fujita, when he stayed in the Tuscany region of Italy, centered on Florence. Both Japanese and Italian actors act together using their mother tongues.

“Riverside Golden Players Club” by Three Pielbergs

This 60-minute comedy play about the love of baseball will be performed at an actual baseball venue named Kounotori Stadium, where audiences will be asked to stand during the first half then take seats for the rest.

“Mali Bucha”: A Dance Offering by Kornkarn Rungsawan

Thai choreographer and dancer Kornkarn Rungsawang created this cross-media dance program with AR and VR technology. The work is inspired by a 400-year-old Thai ritual which connects human and higher beings.

“Night on the Milky Way Train” by Seinendan

This masterpiece by Oriza Hirata, the festival’s director who is also artistic director of his Seinendan company, is based on the great author Kenji Miyazawa’s children’s tale and is regularly performed. This program has a Japanese sign-language service.

“Fires on the Plain” by Honoh Horikawa

The director and playwright Honoh Horikawa adapted Shohei Ooka’s prize-winning novel “Fires on the Plain,” and made it as a one-man performance. The story is loosely based on Ooka’s wartime experience in Leyte in the Philippines, and in it the hero soldier (played by Hideki Nagai) talks about the cruel life there, including urges to murder and indulge in cannibalism as well as gradually going mad.

“The Grasshopper and the Ants” by namstrops x Unlock Dancing Plaza

The Japanese dance troupe namstrops collaborates with the Hong Kong-based dance company Unlock Dancing Plaza to create this powerful and joyful dance program inspired by a book by a scientist researching grasshoppers.

(3) Kyoto Experiment 2024
Runs: October 5 (Saturday) – 27 (Sunday)
Venues: Various locations in Kyoto City
More details: https://kyoto-ex.jp/en/

As one of the world’s major innovative arts festivals, Kyoto Experiment has had many firmly rooted fans inside and outside of Japan ever since it started in 2010. Throughout that time, the festival’s organizers have stuck firmly to their policy to present “experimental” works, so they invite radical and cutting-edge artists from Japan and around the world. Every year, it’s a great joy to meet so many great new artists at Kyoto Experiment — for example:

“Room with a View” by (LA)HORDE x Rone with Ballet national de
Marseille

Three French artists, Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel founded (LA)HORDE in 2013. In line with their concept of “post-internet dance,” the troupe collaborates with the leading electronic music artist Rone and the Ballet national de Marseille’s 19 dancers to express youth’s confusion and irritation through  scenes at a rave party.

“Sweet Dreams Sweet” by Melati Suryodarmo

This work will be performed on the roof of Kyoto City Hall by 28 women who are living there after being invited to take part via the Kyoto Experiment 2024 website. All the cast will dress in the same white costumes and dip their feet in buckets of water. They will move slowly, but their expressions will be hidden behind veils as they perform repetitive actions over a long time.

“D’après une histoire vraie” by Christian Rizzo

The multi-talented French artist Christian Rizzo’s masterpiece “D’après une histoire vraie” will be a highlight of Kyoto Experiment 2024’s line up. Rizzo, a choreographer, visual artist, curator, designer, musician, set designer and opera director presented this work to great acclaim at the Festival d’Avignon in 2013. In this work, male dancers start with gentle movement but after two drummers join them their dance gradually heats up towards the climax.

“Stand by Me” by Shinichi Anasako x Pijin Neji; with Tentenko

These young promising artists, both associates of the notable THEATRE E9 KYOTO, are the playwright and director Shinichi Anasako and the dancer and choreographer Pijin Neji. In this, their first collaboration, “Stand by Me” gropes for the real meaning of life and death — and in fact, how to communicate with one’s own dead body; while the popular electronic musician and DJ Tenteko takes care of the music.

“Haribo Kimchi” by Jaha Koo / CAMPO

The internationally acclaimed South Korean music, video and multimedia artist Jaha Koo’s “Haribo Kimchi” features Korean food and showcases South Korean culture and identity to reveal the  structure of that society. Set in what looks like a typically busy alley of food stalls in South Korea, the piece revolves around Koo talking about his experience as a migrant to Europe and his memory of Korean food, like kimchi and seaweed soup.

“Blind Runner” by Mehr Theatre Group

This 2003 work by the Iranian playwright and director Amir Reza Koohestani is about a couple in which the wife is a political prisoner. Seeing her visiting husband being tormented by loneliness, the wife recommends him to participate in a race in Paris as a guide runner for a blind woman. Then, after the race, the husband decides on taking a new approach to his life.

These works are just a selection of those on the marvelous playlist of this autumn’s performing arts festivals. In addition there are fringe and online programs, as well as a wide range of workshops, lectures, talks and exhibitions. So, please check out the schedules in full to find your own best ways of enjoying the cooler weather in fall’s coming arts season.