Performing Arts

The Performing Arts Program introduces performers from Japan’s contemporary and traditional music, dance and theater scenes, and commissions non-Japanese performing artists to create works on themes relating to Japan. Many distinguished artists have performed in the Society’s 260-seat theater and on Society-produced North American tours. Since 1953, Japan Society’s Performing Arts Program has inspired audiences in New York and beyond with over 1,000 productions ranging from traditional Japanese arts to contemporary theater, dance, music and more.

2023-2024 Season

John Cage’s Japan + Japan’s Radicals

A Note from Yoko Shioya, Artistic Director, Japan Society

John Cage, the 20th-century’s most important avant-garde artist, said that Japan had been an important part of his life and influenced his ideas. However, New York City, Cage’s home ground, has never had a concert focusing on the relationship between Cage and Japan. If John Cage had not encountered Japanese culture, there would have been no John Cage! This gutsy statement is the thought behind Japan Society’s fall 2023 season, John Cage’s Japan, which we proudly present 61 years after Cage’s first trip to Japan.

Borrowing Cage’s iconoclastic mindset, our spring 2024 season features fearless works that defy conventional perspectives of iconic Western culture— Hamlet, Boléro, The Dying Swan and hip-hop. These icons are innovatively reimagined, redisplayed or dissected by various contemporary performing artists from Japan.