Under its new 65-year-old director, Sachio Ichimura, who replaced respected 39-year-old Chiaki Soma in a shock move in March, Festival/Tokyo 2014 adopted "border play" as its catchphrase.

Running through November in and around Ikebukuro, Japan's biggest annual performing-arts event comprised 30 theater, dance and film works, a symposium and talks — in all of which "diversity" was Ichimura's declared aim.

First up was Festival Fukushima!, an event led by Otomo Yoshihide, Michiro Endo and Ryoichi Wago that began with visitors to Ikebukuro's Nishiguchi Park being covered with furoshiki (traditional Japanese wrapping cloth) and invited to take part in Bon dances in honor of the ancestors, and to listen to music and poetry — all with Japan's natural and nuclear disasters in March 2011 in mind.