FESTIVAL/TOKYO
Festival/Tokyo Performing Arts Festival launching from Tokyo
F/T12 Introduction
From the Organizers
The fifth edition of Festival/Tokyo (F/T12) is be held this autumn, organized by Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Culture Creation Project (Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture), along with Toshima Ward and its cultural development body, the Toshima Future Culture Foundation, and the NPO Arts Network Japan. The previous 4 festivals have attracted a total of over 220,000 visitors from around the world and F/T has garnered attention as an event representing both Tokyo and Japan.
F/T11 was based on the theme of "What can we say?", a response to the terrible catastrophe that struck Japan in 2011. It sought to re-connect with our lost sense of reality through the power of the arts, and presented a packed and globally acclaimed program of performances and projects envisioning a new future.
F/T12 follows on from this work and continues to search for the post-disaster vision, setting out to influence the currents of world arts as a festival representative of Asia.
This year the Festival will once again make fundamental inquiries into how we can talk about reality through the arts and theatre, how we can (or cannot) re-grasp the present: without forgetting what has happened, but rather memorizing and discussing it, and then making it into a seed towards future creation and the rehabilitation of the disaster zones. The Festival will look at the social problems that have become apparent since the catastrophe and turn its eyes and ears to brave art that tackles these issues critically. In the present we exist in the midst of a crisis unseen since the end of the war, and the lines of dialogue with outside of Japan need to be strong and wide. Based on this conviction, F/T12 is endeavoring to be a site for encounters between ground-breaking global theatre and the unique creativity born out of post-disaster Japan.
This year the third installment of the F/T Emerging Artists Program will also continue to develop. Along with presenting the theatre works of participants for the whole world, this stepping-stone to success for young Asian artists has become a robust platform for dialogue with the performing arts in the whole of Asia.
The Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space re-opens triumphantly this September and will be vividly utilized by the Festival in a range of satellite events, becoming an organic hub for F/T. As other events planned for Ikebukuro Nishiguchi Park also take place, so too will the energy of the Festival spill out and jubilantly infect the whole area.
Through hosting this Festival we will give birth to new visions that can become the seeds of post-earthquake rehabilitation, dispatching once more to the rest of the globe the unique creativity that only Tokyo can produce.
What is the Tokyo Culture Creation Project?
The Tokyo Culture Creation Project is a project that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and the Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture have been executing since 2008 in collaboration with various arts and cultural organizations and art NPOs. The Project’s objectives are to create and promote arts and culture that are unique to Tokyo, to develop children’s rich sensibilities through arts and culture, and to create various local cultural focal points in Tokyo.
The Project’s activities include organization of events and festivals in the fields of theatre, music, traditional performing arts and fine art, among others; facilitation of collaborative art programs between residents of Tokyo and artists; nurture of torchbearers and supporters of culture who help make arts an integral part of the city of Tokyo; and operation of programs to provide children with the opportunity to experience arts and culture.
Utilizing the city’s diverse and strong cultural base as a metropolis, we aim to establish Tokyo’s cultural presence in the world by communicating the city’s attractiveness and to make Tokyo an international cultural hub.
