Tourism

The Matsuri Intercultural Festival, the only music and performing arts festival in the city devoted to Japanese culture, returns to the Moll de la Fusta wharf on 4 and 5 June. This is the eighth edition of this typical Japanese festival, offering people in Barcelona a chance to discover traditional Japanese culture.

The goal of the festival is to foster cultural exchange through folklore traditions such as dance, shows, traditional songs and eating places which typify Japan’s matsuri. This year’s programme of music and dance combines tradition and modernity, as well as stalls with the typical food offered at summer festivals in Japan.

The event includes typical dances (bon odori), traditional live music (taiko drums) and children’s workshops (crafts, origami and a photo session with yukatas). The great artist Mitsuru Nagata will also be offering a sumi-e performance, a technique strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism.

Local groups and others from Japan have been invited, such as Tomoko Takeda, who performs with the Japanese taiko drum and the shinobue and nôkan flutes, Tetsurô Naitô, a composer and producer who also plays the taiko, and Chieko Kojima, a virtuoso dance who performs to the rhythm of taiko drums played by the group Kodo, among others. Activities are free and participatory.