What’s this? What’s that? What’s here?

Imagine a play with actors lying on the grass in a park performing before a backdrop of spring green or a parade of dancers in a shopping street with audiences invited to join.
As the performance starts, the atmosphere changes completely.

Not only incorporating the cityscape, but including the sound, wind, and audience into the performance, street theatre creates a “space” that attracts people as if it were emitting a powerful magnetic field.
Those who come across this strange scene may unconsciously say out loud, “What’s this?” Yes, it is street theatre that creates encounters with the unknown.

What is Street Theatre?

“Strange Seed Shizuoka” started in 2016 as a unique street theatre festival found nowhere else in Japan. In 2023, the 8th year of the festival, it was held under the slogan “What is street theatre?”
The slogan which posed a question provided an opportunity for festival organizers and artists, as well as the audience, to encounter and reconsider the new genre of expression: street theatre.

Held in the parks with lush greenery, a city hall with stone pavement, bustling shopping streets, a human-made pond, and historic buildings, Strange Seed Shizuoka 2024 will offer three programs: Core Program, Official Program, and Open Call Program that invites artists willing to take challenges to open up new possibilities of street theatre. Together, the programs transform various locations in Shizuoka into landscapes that evoke questions: What’s this? What’s that? What’s here?

Street Theatre Experiments Unique to Shizuoka

Breathing new life into public spaces cannot be accomplished by artists alone―it requires the warm applause of the audience and the generous support of the City of Shizuoka.
Street Theatre remains relatively unknown in Japan despite its widespread presence in the rest of Asia and Europe. However, Shizuoka has a rich ground for venturing into the world of Street Theatre, and the city hosts the annual festival that has led the street theatre scene in Japan.

From Shizuoka to the world, there is an infinite possibility of creating yet-to-be-seen landscapes and expressions of “What’s this? What’s that? What’s here?”
This year, Strange Seed Shizuoka celebrates its 9th anniversary.
Let’s nurture the street theatre scene, a new artistic genre that budded here in Shizuoka, and join us for a fun-filled experience!

Strange Seed Shizuoka 2024 is about to begin.