From world music to surrealist art to plum blossoms, there’s something for everyone across the archipelago. If you’re planning or organizing something cool, send us an email to have your event listed here.
Monday: Kids coffee (Tokyo)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cafe
Everyone’s favorite caterpillar gets its own theme cafe in downtown Tokyo. Eric Carle, award-winning children’s book illustrator and author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, will see his book come to life at The Very Hungry Caterpillar pop-up cafe. It is the perfect destination for the young or just the nostalgic. The cafe is situated inside the Marronnier Gate building's Sunday Brunch restaurant. Guarantee yourself a spot by booking a seat in advance through their website.
When & Where
- Feb 5~
- 11a.m.-9 p.m.
- Marronnier Gate, Tokyo - Map
- Free entrance
Tuesday: Global sounds (Fukuoka)
Filastine & Nova Drapetomania Japan Tour
A new collaboration between veteran Barcelona producer Grey Filastine and Indonesian neo-soul vocalist Nova Ruth comes to Fukuoka. The sounds on their new album Barcelona are electronic and acoustic, pop and wildly experimental, from roots music to future bass. The word Drapetomania itself comes from an 18th-century medical diagnosis for the urge of the slave to run away, at that time considered a mental illness. The album was recorded in a series of improvised music studios, from a wooden sailing ship in the Indian Ocean to a dusty village in the Sahara Desert.
When & Where
- Feb 6
- 7 p.m.
- Art Space Tetra, Fukuoka - Map
- ¥1,500
Wednesday: A filmmaker’s art (Tokyo)
David Lynch Exhibition
David Lynch is a well-known film director but has also expressed his creative impulses in other media from his early years: painting, photography, animation, and sculpture as well as film. In Japan, he held solo exhibitions at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art in 1991 and Laforet Museum Harajuku in 2012. This exhibition features lithographs and woodcut prints produced in recent years, and coincides with the Japan release of the documentary film David Lynch: The Art Life.
When & Where
- Feb 7-12
- 11 a.m.-8 p.m.
- Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo - Map
- Free
Thursday: T-bone and co. (Yokohama)
Brian Allen, Hayashi Eiichi, Seo Takashi, Darren Moore
Multi-talented American trombonist Brian Allen teams up with some of Japan’s most imaginative improvisers for a night of jazz in Yokohama. Originally from Texas, Allen has performed across North America, Europe and Japan at venues from the Bang On A Can Marathon to Carnegie Hall and CBGB's. A recipient of ASCAPlus Awards and composer for VoxNovus 60x60, Brian has works commissioned for wind, jazz, chamber, trombone and percussion ensembles performed at Tanglewood Institute and Big 12 Trombone Conference. In 2000 Brian started Braintone Records, releasing six cds to date. For years he was a DJ on the venerable KTRU Jazz and Improvised Music Show.
When & Where
- Feb 8
- 7 p.m.
- Airegin, Yokohama - Map
- ¥2,500
Friday: Laugh your socks off (Osaka)
Comedian Paul Tonkinson
ROR Comedy club offers folks in Kansai the rare chance to hear standup in English. For one of its first 2018 installments ROR welcomes Paul Tonkinson to Osaka. An award-winning Time Out Comedian of the Year, Tonkinson has a name as one of the UK’s most consistent standups. He’s critically acclaimed for his impassioned physicality and note-perfect impressions. Tonkinson comes to ROR Comedy Club on the back of sellout arena dates in New York and Toronto.
When & Where
- Feb 9-10
- 9 p.m.
- ROR Comedy, Osaka - Map
- ¥2,000
Saturday: Stage experiments (Kanagawa)
Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama
TPAM (Performing Arts Meeting in Yokohama) is a weeklong annual event where contemporary theater and movement arts professionals exchange ideas through performance and meeting programs. The event was born in 1995 as Tokyo Performing Arts Market and moved in 2011 to the “Creative City” Yokohama. Recently, the focus is on Asia, providing audiences with a great chance to check out cutting-edge acts based in countries from South Korea to Cambodia.
When & Where
- Feb 10-18
- Various
- KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre and other venues - Map
- Various
Sunday: Signs of spring (Tokyo)
Yushima Tenjin Ume Matsuri
Yushima Tenmangu Shrine (Yushima Tenjin) has been beloved since the Edo period as a famous place to view plum blossoms. The precincts, which enshrine Sugawara no Michizane (the deity of scholarship), are an amazing sight when the approximately 300 plum trees — mainly Shirokaga white plums — bloom. When Lord Sugawara was exiled, he wrote a famous paean to the blossoms that read, "Let the east wind blow and send your fragrance / Oh, plum blossoms / Do not forget the spring / Even though your master is gone." The event is part of the Bunkyo Ume Matsuri (Bunkyo Plum Festival).
When & Where
- Feb 11-Mar 8
- 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m.
- Yushima Tenmangu Shrine, Tokyo - Map
- Free
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