6:00pm
This is a participatory performance art. The audience is invited to make the performer “invisible” by putting on the Kurogo costume pieces.
[Definition: Kurogo]
Kurogo is a figure on the stage dressed in black in the Japanese traditional theatre genres of Bunraku puppetry and Kabuki. Kurogo signifies “invisible”/ “ non-existent”, functioning to support the on-stage characters. In both of these 400-year-old Bunraku and Kabuki, women have not been permitted to perform professionally on the stage.
Izumi Ashizawa is a Japanese performance and visual artist, born/trained in Tokyo, based in New York. Rooted in her deep study/training in Japanese culture, she specializes in transmedia performance art, particularly keen on reinterpreting male-only-permitted Japanese traditional cultural codes, and places them in a different context to give a new meaning.
"Izumi Ashizawa has created a gut-wrenching realm of discovery where commonsense is thrown aside and your latent instincts are awakened."---DC Metro Theater Arts
Ashizawa’s direction have the same kind of ritualistic beauty that one might find in a Japanese tea ceremony”---AmericanTheatre Web
“The show conjures up an otherworldly atmosphere that makes it intoxicating.”---Washington City Paper
Part of Physical Fest 2026, Tmesis Theatre's international physical theatre festival, for full programme go to