SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026 — organized directly by Sumida Ward, a first among Tokyo's 23 special wards — opens on Friday, September 4, 2026, and will roll out more than 100 programs at over 50 locations across the ward.*
The lineup includes a new dance work that draws out the memories held in the land, a play that resonates with front-line welfare work, an immersive theater tour set in the neighborhood streets, and a shitamachi comedy brimming with old-town warmth — works that draw on resources unique to Sumida Ward and can only be experienced here.
Tickets are now on sale for the two productions opening the festival at Sumida Park Theater Kura, along with the immersive tour performance Mystery Sound: Lethe. At Sumida Park Theater Kura, from September 4 (Friday) to 6 (Sunday), choreographer and dancer Kota Yamazaki — acclaimed in Japan and abroad for a style that fuses Japanese Butoh with Western ballet and contemporary dance — stages Umewaka Has Yet to Return. (Scripted Dance Version), a new work built on the Umewaka legend passed down in Sumida Ward. From September 11 (Friday) to 13 (Sunday), Hydroblast / Kyoko Takenaka performs Care and Acting, born from confronting her father's death and the act of caregiving, and from finding where care and acting overlap. Mystery Sound Research Institute's Mystery Sound: Lethe runs October 16 (Friday) to November 1 (Sunday), and Theater Company Tobira-za's Ode to Joy: The Sumida Special Edition runs December 19 (Saturday) and 20 (Sunday). Watch for the colors rising across Sumida Ward this autumn.
*As of September 2025, per Sumida Ward's own research, this is the first time a comprehensive, multi-month arts festival organized by a ward government has been held among Tokyo's 23 special wards.
The Sumida River has nurtured countless stories since ancient times — a town where Edo-era commoners enjoyed theater, cherry blossoms, and fireworks, and where, even through earthquake and wartime destruction, the culture accumulated in this land has continued to nourish people's hearts. Working with these local resources, the festival creates dance and theater that approach the legends passed down in Sumida from fresh perspectives and methods, questioning the expressive techniques that run through the fabric of everyday life, and portraying on stage the humor and tenderness that fill ordinary people's lives. We hope you'll fully savor the pleasure of live performance — a once-in-a-lifetime encounter.
— Yasuko Ogihara, Director, SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026
About the Paid Performance Programs
For about four months, from September 4 (Friday) to December 20 (Sunday), SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026 turns galleries and theaters, as well as old houses, temples, shopping streets, and the streets people live their daily lives on, into spaces for artistic expression. Most programs can be enjoyed free of charge, but some performances require advance ticket purchase — check each ticket page before booking.
Kota Yamazaki, Umewaka Has Yet to Return. (Scripted Dance Version)
A dance performance exploring an "absence" that keeps regenerating in the present, drawn from a sorrowful tale sleeping in this land
This latest work by choreographer and dancer Kota Yamazaki, who continues to be active on the front lines based in both Japan and the U.S., focuses on the Umewaka legend passed down at Mokubo-ji Temple on Sumida's Tsutsumi-dori. It is the sorrowful tale of Umewakamaru, a boy taken by traffickers in early childhood who lost his life on the bank of the Sumida River, and of the mother who never stopped searching for her son. Inspired by the story of a mother and child who could never be reunited in life, the work explores an "absence that keeps regenerating in the present."
Dancers guided by Yamazaki's script slip through the fissures of body, language, and sound, crossing paths as they take on multiple presences that do not remain fixed within a single place and time. Sumida Park Theater Kura becomes a hazy, otherworldly space where past and present, life and absence, gently overlap — as though Umewaka were descending in the moment fog once blurred everything across this former marshland. Watch for this "scripted dance," Yamazaki's first full engagement with a proper script, pushing both language and body into new territory.
Written, directed, and choreographed by: Kota Yamazaki
Music: Kazuhisa Uchihashi
Performers: SHIon, Sebastian Geilings, Chiaki Hotta, Kohei Fujimura, Mina Nishimura
September 4 (Friday), 2026, 7:30 PM / September 5 (Saturday), 3:00 PM* / September 6 (Sunday), 3:00 PM*
*A talk with Kota Yamazaki follows the performances on September 5 and 6 (guest on the 5th: Yoshiro Yoda Hatori; guest on the 6th: Yukio-Pegio Gunji).
Venue: Sumida Park Theater Kura (1-1-10 Yokokawa, Sumida Ward, Tokyo)
Comment from Yukio-Pegio Gunji (natural intelligence researcher): The dancers fuse with objects and their own bodies, only to cast them off and negate them again. A burst of motion suddenly resolves, and as they seem to walk on forever, shoulder to shoulder, murmuring in code, they drift apart as if crumbling. As though touching down on a planet where it's dangerous to go without something on, they abruptly step into toe shoes, stretch onto pointe while pressing the other thigh to the chest, and dance a dance that refuses to be dance. This, he says, is "uncool-cool dance."
Official site: https://www.uhyr.info/scripted-dance
About Kota Yamazaki: A choreographer and dancer who led Japan's contemporary dance scene in the 1990s as head of the dance company rosy Co. He relocated his base to New York in 2002 and has since received numerous honors, including a Bessie Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He now leads Body Arts Laboratory and is active in both Japan and the U.S., and serves as a visiting professor in the Dance Department at Bennington College. He recently drew attention for appearing as "Uncle Kyamata" on a Japanese TV program.
Hydroblast / Kyoko Takenaka, Care and Acting
A social practice in theater and dialogue, born from finding where care and acting overlap
Kyoko Takenaka was moved by the "art of care" she witnessed over more than ten years of her father's home care team, and after an artist residency at a senior welfare facility, she created this play where welfare and performance intersect. Since its 2024 premiere, the work has sparked dialogue about "care" in venues across the country, and now returns reimagined as a full theatrical staging.
Beyond the performance itself, the run also includes "Learning Room," a concurrent series of workshops, talks, and post-show discussions bringing together people from the worlds of art and welfare to learn together.
Performance: Care and Acting
Written and directed by: Kyoko Takenaka
Performers: Shingo Ota, Kyoko Takenaka, Tomoko Shimazaki, Masanori Hattori
Dates: September 11 (Friday), 2026, 7:00 PM / September 12 (Saturday), 1:00 PM / September 13 (Sunday), 1:00 PM
Venue: Sumida Park Theater Kura (1-1-10 Yokokawa, Sumida Ward, Tokyo)
Accessibility options (advance booking required):
- Seating with easy access to the exits, and space for wheelchairs and stretchers
- Seats for viewing with Japanese subtitles
- A mini briefing on the work using touchable models, for visitors who are blind or have low vision
- Seats where a companion can quietly describe the on-stage visuals to a visitor who is blind or has low vision during the performance
- An area where guide/service dogs are welcome
Learning Room (four sessions total, free, advance booking required)
August 26 (Wednesday), 6:30 PM / August 27 (Thursday), 6:30 PM — Venue: Kobokan (1-11-6 Kyojima, Sumida Ward)
September 12 (Saturday), 2:30 PM / September 13 (Sunday), 2:30 PM — Venue: Sumida Park Theater Kura
Speakers: Kyoko Takenaka; Akira Aoki (independent curator / certified social worker); Yusuke Takeichi (artist); Natsuko Takeda (director, day-service facility Rakuraku / certified social worker); Yoko Niizuma (project assistant professor, Tokyo University of the Arts Arts & Future Research Center); Takao Murase (representative, elder-care home Yoriai); Kanoko Tamura (art translator)
Reservations (Peatix): https://sumida-artfest-hydroblast.peatix.com/
Official site: https://hydroblast.asia/free/careacting_2026
About Hydroblast: A creative unit led by Shingo Ota (film director and actor) and Kyoko Takenaka (producer and actor), working across film and theater, with roles defined project by project to aim for multi-perspective creative work. Representative works include Satellite Call Theater (staged at BUG). Their film Numakage Public Pool was invited to more than 15 international film festivals worldwide, and opens nationwide in Japan on September 5 this year. Since 2024 the pair have taken part in "Sumida River Shinra Banzo Sumi ni Yume," producing the documentary The Chimney Sweep, set in Sumida Ward. Takenaka's first book, Care and Acting, is scheduled for publication this December in Igaku-Shoin's "Kea wo Hiraku" (Opening Up Care) series.
Mystery Sound Research Institute, Mystery Sound: Lethe
An immersive tour performance that traces a neighborhood's history and memory, making participants part of the story
Mystery Sound Research Institute (謎音研究所), centered on director and lighting designer Makoto Uemura and composer and sound designer Yoshiki Masuda, presents an immersive walking performance that uses participants' own smartphones as they move through the neighborhood.
Taking as its starting point the "sunken bell" legend said to be the origin of the Kanegafuchi place name in Sumida Ward, the piece builds on the bell's symbolic role as something that "signals disaster," reconsidering memories etched into the land — the Great Kanto Earthquake, wartime destruction, flooding — as phenomena set off by an "unexplained sound" (a mystery sound). At dusk, participants act as investigators for the institute, following an audio guide as they trace scattered traces across the area from Higashi-Mukojima to Kanegafuchi, gradually drawn into the middle of a layered, unfolding story.
Concept: Mystery Sound Research Institute
Structure and direction: Makoto Uemura
Sound: Yoshiki Masuda
Performers: Masayuki Yano, Shihomi Nakano, Daisuke Yamamoto, Nanami Maeda, and others
Voice performers: Tomoka Ishihara, Takehiko Kurokawa, Rena Hatano, Kanako Nishida, Shigeru Sato, and others
Local dramaturge: Suruki Yanagi
Technical support: Fuka Nagata
Booklet design: Tomoka Ishihara
Production supervisor: Hitomi Sato
Dates: October 16 (Friday)–18 (Sunday) / October 23 (Friday)–25 (Sunday) / October 30 (Friday)–November 1 (Sunday), 2026. Check-in each day from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM.
Venue: Higashi-Mukojima to Kanegafuchi area (check-in location to be announced)
Official site: https://nazooto-lab.com/lethe
About Mystery Sound Research Institute: A fictional research institute active since 2024, centered on Makoto Uemura, who works in direction and lighting design, and Yoshiki Masuda, who works in composition and sound design. Drawing on field recordings of local memory and history, the institute creates immersive tour performances and cross-media works, including ARGs. Past works include a Kita-Senju edition (April 2024), Mystery Sound: The Bell That Rings from the Riverbed (謎音-水底から鳴る鐘-) in Sumida Ward (October 2024), and a Matsudo edition (2025, at PARADISE AIR).
Theater Company Tobira-za, Ode to Joy: The Sumida Special Edition
Shinosuke Tatekawa's celebrated rakugo comedy, staged with local voices raised in song, in a shitamachi comedy brimming with old-town warmth
At a community hall on the cusp of the New Year, two different mothers' choruses double-book the same hall by mistake, and the shitamachi shopping street Kirakira Tachibana holds its own chaotic year-end lottery — this entertaining piece follows the ensuing mayhem. Based on a rakugo work created by Shinosuke Tatekawa, the piece is adapted and staged by Kensuke Yokouchi, head of Sumida-based Theater Company Tobira-za, as a "special edition" made just for the ward.
Sumida Ward residents recruited through open call will actually appear in the chorus, and Seiji Rokkaku — who played a hapless city official to acclaim at the 2016 premiere — returns to the role after some time away. The warmth and energy of the local community resonate with the theater company's dramatic vitality, offering laughter and tears fitting for a festive finale to the festival.
Original story: Shinosuke Tatekawa
Script and direction: Kensuke Yokouchi
Cast: Theater Company Tobira-za
Dates: December 19 (Saturday), 2026, 6:00 PM / December 20 (Sunday), 2:00 PM
Venue: Hikifune Cultural Center Hall (1-38-11 Kyojima, Sumida Ward, Tokyo)
https://sumida-artfest.jp/programs/169/
About Theater Company Tobira-za: Founded in 1982 under the name Zennin Kaigi (善人会議) by Kensuke Yokouchi, Akira Okamori, and Seiji Rokkaku, the company was renamed Tobira-za in 1993. It performs at mid-sized venues such as Kinokuniya Hall and Za-Koenji, as well as on regional tours, and runs theater workshops for a wide range of age groups. Based in Sumida Ward since 1995, the company opened the Tobira-za Actors' Studio in 1997 and, in 2019, the "Sumida Park Tobira-za Adult Theater Club" for participants age 50 and over. The company works on community-based creative outreach and talent development, and won the Group Award at the 60th Kinokuniya Theatre Awards in 2025.
Event Overview
Name: SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026
Theme: Five Colors of Sumida
Concept: Hakkiyoyo (Full Vitality)
Executive Director: Shingo Jinno
Directors: Akira Aoki, Yasuko Ogihara, Ryoichi Seimiya, Daisuke Mita
Dates: September 4 (Friday) – December 20 (Sunday), 2026
Regular closing days: Mondays and Tuesdays in principle (open when those days fall on public holidays)
Venues: Kanegafuchi (entire area), Former Sumida Elementary School Gymnasium, Kinshicho area, Commune X, Shirahige East Apartment area, Sumida River Terrace, Sumida Ward Social Welfare Hall, Sumida Ward Hikifune Cultural Center, Sumida Lifelong Learning Center (Utoriya), Sumida Triphony Hall, Sumida Park Gallery Sasaya, Sumida Park Theater Kura, Tachibana Taisho Folk House Garden (Former Koyama Residence), Taro Hachi, Community Activity Support Center Connect Base Sumida, Chiba University Sumida Satellite Campus, Tobu Museum, Noud Hikifune, Hikifune to Higashimukojima neighborhood streets, next to Hojo Komuten, Ryogoku area, and others (in alphabetical order)
Admission: Free (some facilities and events excepted)
Website: https://sumida-artfest.jp
SNS:
- X: https://x.com/sumida_artfest
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sumida_artfest/
- Facebook: SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026
Organizer: SUMIDA ART FESTIVAL 2026 Executive Committee, Sumida Ward
Co-organizer: Sumida River Shinra Banzo Sumi ni Yume Executive Committee (open-call projects)
Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs' fiscal year 2026 (Reiwa 8) Program for the Formation of Cultural and Artistic Creative Hubs.
