Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Arts Council Tokyo (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture) will implement projects forming the Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL’s core, which are the result of a public call for proposals that generated a wide range of innovative and creative projects, and also projects in which large numbers of people can participate.
These 13 projects selected from among the 2,436 ideas submitted from within Japan and overseas began to be held in September 2019. Most were scheduled to take place between April and September 2020, but had to be postponed.
However, as the program was planned with the goal of creating a sense of excitement from a cultural perspective in Tokyo as it hosts the Olympic and Paralympic Games, we have made a fresh start and will begin re-implementing these projects in earnest in spring 2021.

Tokyo Tokyo FESTIVAL Special 13

1. The Constant Gardeners
   Project proposed by Jason Bruges Studio (UK)
   Scheduled for: Summer 2021
   Venue/Area: Ueno Park
   This project uses robotics to represent the history of Japanese culture and art seen in its Zen gardens, while reconstructing them with a global outlook. A robotic arm programmed with athletes’ movements will create an ever-changing Japanese garden. This installation staged in Ueno Park will blend robotics, Japanese gardening culture, and sport.
2. SUMIDA RIVER | Storm and Urge
   Project proposed by NPO TOPPING EAST
   Scheduled for: Spring and summer 2021
   Venue/Area: In Tokyo
   This interactive music and art festival will use the Sumida River as a stage. Leading Japanese artists including Ei Wada, KOM_I, and Shuta Hasunuma will gather here to stage installations, concerts, and a range of other performances in two week-long showcases, one in spring and the other in summer. Harking back to the splendor of the Edo period 200 years ago, this project will evoke the area’s long history through performing arts and expressive activities, depicting the sight of a great maelstrom of people coming together.
3. World Performing Arts Festival 2020 (project name due to be altered)
   Project proposed by Japan Folk Performing Arts Association
   Scheduled for: Summer 2021
   Venue/Area: In Tokyo
   Centering on presentations of research conducted across five continents in six different countries (Estonia, Honduras, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Bhutan, and Tonga), and in the Tohoku region prefectures of Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima, this festival will introduce traditional culture and performing arts (intangible cultural heritage) that have been passed down the generations in various parts of the world. In doing so, this project will seek to communicate the significance of cultural diversity and coexistence through person-to-person exchanges, helping to ensure that this heritage is passed on to future generations.
4. DANCE TRUCK TOKYO
   Project proposed by JAPAN DANCE TRUCK ASSOCIATION
   Scheduled for: Thursday, September 5 2019 – August 2021
   Venue/Area: Tokyo wards, the Tama area, and others
   Dance Trucks—ordinary delivery trucks whose cargo spaces are used as a stage—will offer mobile dance performances in various places of Tokyo. Among the performers will be many edgy artists from a range of fields. The truck’s tiny cargo space will metamorphose into a device that seamlessly blends physical movement with light and sound, transforming the familiar urban landscape with performances that are also tailored to the surrounding environment.
5. TOKYO SENTO Festival 2020
   Project proposed by TOKYO SENTO Festival 2020 Executive Committee
   Scheduled for: Wednesday, May 26 – Sunday, September 5 2021
   Venue/Area: About 500 public bathhouses in Tokyo
   Sento—public baths—have traditionally been a place for Japanese people to relax and strengthen their connections with other members of their community. This art project seeks to tell the world about Japan’s unique sento culture and foster a sense of excitement about 2021 among as many people as possible. It will feature interactive events involving a diverse array of Japan’s leading artists, including manga and graphic artists, who will be creating the coolest art to excite both body and mind in the capital’s hottest settings! With Japan’s traditional sento culture as the backdrop, this festival will showcase the freshest voices in Japanese culture to the world and cultivate heartwarming exchanges between individuals.
6. TOKYO REAL UNDERGROUND
   Project proposed by NPO Dance Archive Network
   Scheduled for: Thursday, April 1 – Sunday, August 15 2021
   Venue/Area: In Tokyo, online
   An experimental arts festival staged mainly in Tokyo’s underground spaces will explore the historical times and spaces of the megalopolis that is Tokyo through a diverse and unpredictable program on the theme “underground.” Centering on Butoh, a form of dance theater born in postwar Japan that has subsequently spread across the globe, this experimental performing arts festival will also reproduce in Tokyo’s contemporary underground spaces the various forms of expression that Butoh itself has influenced.
7. Pavilion Tokyo 2021
   Project proposed by Pavilion Tokyo 2021 Executive Committee (WATARI-UM, The Watari Museum of Contemporary Art)
   Scheduled for: Thursday, July 1 – Sunday, September 5 2021
   Venue/Area: In Tokyo
   Six world-renowned Japanese architects and two artists will each design a one-of-a-kind pavilion showcasing the architecture and art of the future to local citizens and tourists alike. The pavilions will be sited approximately within 3 km radius of the new National Stadium and will be open to view throughout the event period, enabling visitors to drop into those they encounter while taking a stroll around the area or, map in hand, treat their excursion as a treasure hunt.
8. The Speed of Light
   Project proposed by Marco Canale (Argentina)
   Scheduled for: May 2021
   Venue/Area: In Tokyo
   This theatrical project will see Argentinian theater and film director Marco Canale conducting research in Tokyo and interviewing elderly people who live there, focusing on tales based on their memories and experiences, as well as the history of Tokyo. Centering on a touring play in which the seniors themselves will actually appear and complemented by short videos and screen productions, the project will spotlight Tokyo from various angles and present a fictional story that the past, present, and future cross each other.
9. After-school Diversity Dance
   Project proposed by ADD Executive Committee
   Scheduled for: September 2019 – August 2021
   Venue/Area: Minato City, Kunitachi City, Hinode Town
   This project brings together three areas of Tokyo to create a new local cultural platform through dance. It will work with the participating children to create an approach to dance based on multicultural coexistence, transcending differences of age, gender, and nationality. Based on workshops led by top producers and dancers including Kikunojo Onoe, Koharu Sugawara, and Osamu Jareo, as well as various people from the field of dance in the communities concerned, the children will choreograph their own performances and, through this, learn the joy of creating something themselves.
10. masayume
    Project proposed by [mé]
    Scheduled for: Summer 2021
    Venue/Area: In Tokyo
    This art project by contemporary art team [mé] will see a face chosen from among submissions from people across the globe floating in the sky above Tokyo. The Open Call / Face Collecting Workshop between March and June 2019 attracted entries from more than 1,400 people worldwide. In June 2019, a total of 3,400 people attended or watched via live stream the Face Meeting, which was held to choose the face and took the form of an open discussion. The face chosen will be created in 3D form and raised high into the Tokyo sky in summer 2021.
11. Exhibition of MANGA “What if Tokyo”
    Project proposed by Exhibition of MANGA “What if Tokyo” Executive Committee
    Scheduled for: Summer 2021
    Venue/Area: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo
    This exhibition on the theme will showcase the diverse, hitherto-unseen visions for Tokyo depicted by leading contemporary Japanese manga artists, based on the theme “What if Tokyo.”
12. Light and Sound Installation “Coded Field”
    Project proposed by Rhizomatiks
    *Held on Saturday, November 16 2019
    Venue/Area: Zojoji Buddhist Temple, Minato City Shiba Park, Metropolitan Shiba Park
    This project saw Zojoji Temple’s architectural data and topographic data analyzed by means of programming (coded) to generate a virtual space (field) embedded with information for transformation into light and sound. Using special balloon-like devices developed by Rhizomatiks, this invisible information was translated into light and sound in real space, creating a large-scale interactive installation that was simultaneously enjoyed by many people. There were also contemporary dance performances tailored to the light and sound.
13. (Secret Program; To be announced at a later date)