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URAMATSURI 裏祭り

Celebrating East and South East Asian Immigrants' culture in today‘s Britain. 

Just Announced!!​

URAMATSURI 2025 at Southbank Centre

​Saturday 19th July 2025

The 9th edition Ura Matsuri will be hosted at Southbank Centre on 19th July 2025. 

It's a free event and everyone is welcome to join! 

Ura Matsuri goes to Southbank Centre!

Make noise, not waste!

 

Ura Matsuri invites you to immerse yourself in Japanese music and use recycled materials to make your own instruments.

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Start your evening with a performance from Yuko Tsubame with Stephane Bourquin, singing and playing the Sanshin – a traditional Japanese instrument from Okinawa. Let her sounds inspire you to create your own ‘Bin-struments’, musical instruments from recycled materials, with the Ura Matsuri collective.

The Clore Ballroom, Southbank Centre

 

Wed 28 May 2025, 5.30pm​ - 8.30pm

Free event!

Audience and Artists feedback from Uramatsuri

What is Ura Matsuri?

Ura Matsuri is a festival, showcasing both world-leading and emerging artists from the East and South East Asian diaspora. The performers are working in various disciplines and there is a particular focus on women artists. The festival is a celebration of rich and diverse cultural heritages and how the work has been shaped by living in the UK.

 

Ura Matsuri has been running since 2016, initially as an annual event but has since expanded, is curated by Ura Matsuri Collective (UMC), a group of Japanese female artists from the legendary pop band Frank Chickens.

Ura, means ‘other side’ in Japanese and Matsuri, means ‘local community festival’. This refers to our interest in providing a platform to under-represented artists in today’s multi-cultural UK.

 

Ura Matsuri has provided audiences with wide-ranging works, compered by Japanny-A-Granny (our resident funky hostess) in a Variety Show style.  We have had pop music, experimental music, Chinese percussion, Japanese Shamisen, Benshi film, burlesque puppets, Butoh dance, Japanese Taiko & flute, children’s workshops and many more. Ura Matsuri has also become a meeting and networking place for participating artists. Our “Green Room for artists” space has generated several collaborative projects already.

 

Ura Matsuri Collectives (UMC) are:

Kazuko Hohki

Kazumi Taguchi

Nao Nagai

Tomoko Komura

Toshiko Kurata

Yoko Nishimura

Photos Clockwise from to left: Frank Chickens, Photographer: David X Green; Hibiki Ichikawa and Shamisen London with Akari Mochizuki, Photographer: David X Green, Yuko Tsubame, Photographer: Kuba Nowak

Video excerpts from 'Ura Matsuri Cinemateki 2025' by Dror Shohet, a flilm based on the footage from Ura Matsuri at Hoxton Hall October 2024.

The film was available for streaming for a limited time 9th-23rd March2025. 

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Copyright © Ura Matsuri 2025

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