EVENTS

Static Sense is a performance event by Norwegian artist Kurt Johannessen and the art collective The Stitch Sisters. Welcome to Ebihara Shoten, a place that has served as a hub in the local community for decades, where the space itself hold countless unrecorded memories, traces of labor and conversation, lingering presences, and subtle atmospheres. Static Sense attempts to sense the layered time dwelling in this site, and to reawaken its invisible histories through bodies inhabiting the “here and now.” This performance evening does not seek a one-directional transmission of an art experience, but rather an encounter in which every participant may be quietly transformed without dramatic action or narrative. The event attends to the body as a material expression of poetry emerging within the fixed boundaries of a space. Even when a body seems motionless on the surface, its inner perceptions are continually in motion. By listening closely to these microscopic vibrations, the project highlights how shared time and dialogue may transform individual presences. Throughout the event, we explore the expressive potential arising from encounters between performers and viewers—an entanglement that creates a quietly experienced, momentary common ground. Here, performance does not exist merely to be seen. It intervenes in our consciousness, stirring resonance, hesitation, and quietly shared moments of awareness. Kurt Johannessen’s minimal and poetic performances leave room for the audience’s own perception and thought, without limiting meaning. The Stitch Sisters present participatory performance work that emerge from processes of dialogue and collaboration, reweaving relationships through shared involvement. Though their approaches differ, both practices share a quiet yet profound intention: to cultivate a sense of connection that gently touches the other, rather than asserting the self forcefully.   Invited Artists Kurt Johannessen Kurt Johannessen (b. 1960) works at the intersection of body and language. He explores minimal sensory experiences through short textual fragments and artist books, and has presented poetic, minimal body-based works internationally.   The Stitch Sisters A research-performance collective that reconsiders the interrelation of history, the body, and labor through yarn. Incorporating knitting actions, storytelling, sound, and scent, they unearth the ties between exploitation and care, production and everyday life, while weaving imaginative futures. For the Tokyo Edition, a Guest Artist joins the collective, whose practice foregrounds collaborative processes shaped through dialogue, laughter, silence, and tactile engagement with materials. Through an interplay of humor and experimentation, the artist and the collective attend to the emergence of relationality and continually reexamines the forms that collaboration and collectivity can take.

Live Performance by Ravn (Mike TV) Ugly Betty Sits with the Hounds (the hounds! the hounds! Invite them for tea in the chamber of your belly!) Ugly Betty is a leading character in the ongoing noise-driven, site-responsive performance work by Ravn (Mike TV), unfolding as a fever dream of distortion, character-play, and embodied storytelling. Each iteration of the project is shaped by the architecture, atmosphere, and emotional undercurrents of the space in which it occurs—whether a cavernous industrial interior, the bright sterility of an office, or the raw emptiness of a white cube. Floors, bathrooms, bar counters, and the audience themselves become an extended stage. Hypnotic walls of sound collide with sudden silence; guttural vocals dissolve into deadpan spoken word confessions; feedback mutates into melody. Hooks surface unexpectedly from the wreckage. Improvisation acts as both method and compass, guiding the performance toward the body’s shifting stories and the “voices” embedded in the room’s structure. The narrative follows the character of Ugly Betty, a reimagining of the pop cultural icon. whose voice emerges from different parts of the body and whose emotional reality morphs in response to the energy of the environment. No two performances are alike. Each is a live excavation—an intimate confrontation with feedback, distortion, rupture, and reclaimed harmony. The result is a space of uncompromising honesty that disrupts convention and invites the audience into a renewed understanding of themselves, the performer, and the environments they inhabit together. Ugly Betty digs into the stories that live in our bones and the spaces we inhabit. She surges in waves of character-play and sound – a sonic narrative carved from distortion, rupture, and beautiful, reclaimed harmony.   Invited Artist Ravn (Mike TV) Ravn (Mike TV) is an Oslo-based performer and sound artist working at the intersection of noise, melody, character-play, and embodied narrative. Using guitar, vocals, modular electronics, and improvisation, Ravn (Mike TV) creates site-specific performances that transform any environment—venues, offices, galleries, or in-between spaces—into an active collaborator. Her recent work centers on Ugly Betty, a volatile, shifting character whose voice emerges from different parts of the body and responds to the architecture and energy of the room. Mike TV exists as both a solo practice and a collaborative project with bassist/drummer Niord A S Hauge and drummer/guitarist Ånon Bakkjen, and is an uncompromising exploration of noise, experimental music and pop culture. Performances at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo Kunstforening, and other institutions have established Mike TV’s practice as one of raw physicality, radical honesty, and immersive sonic storytelling, where space and sound become inseparable. Mike TV is an uncompromising bridge between noise, experimental music and pop culture. https://ravnnaa.bandcamp.com/album/deadbird-peripheral-drone Instagram: @ravnnaa, @__miketv

Members of the Norway-based Tenthaus Art Collective, Shahrzad Malekian and Ida Uvaas, will present their new performance Kizuna in October 2025. Kizuna is a site-responsive work developed in and around Kanda’s Ebihara Shoten. Shaped through movement and embodied research, it leaves traces in the form of shared rhythms, presence, attentiveness, and moving images. The performance is part of Malekian and Uvaas’ long-term collaboration STIM—a living, context-specific choreographic organism. STIM unfolds through a flexible score that shifts with each location, taking on a new title in response to its surroundings. Rooted in an inquiry into time, memory, belonging, and spatial narratives, the work treats public space as a layered and contested terrain, where movement becomes a mode of listening, tracing, and reimagining. Previously presented in Norway, Singapore, and other sites, STIM adapts to each context with sensitivity to its history and social fabric. In Tokyo, the project takes form as Kizuna, engaging with Ebihara Shoten as both a structure of memory and a site shaped by visible and invisible systems of care and control.   Notes Event held rain or shine (mostly indoors). Bring an umbrella for site transfers.   Performers Tsunoda Lisa, Sakai Minori, Satoko Hikasa, Keiko Tokuyasu, Yuko Tokuyasu, Yamada Hibiki, Takanari Mahoko   Direction Shahrzad Malekian An interdisciplinary artist working across performance, video, and sculpture, they use play to explore power, resistance, and care within public spaces and institutions. Recent exhibitions include SACO Biennial (2025) and Singapore Art Museum (2024). @shahrzad.malekian   Ida Uvaas A movement artist exploring mobility across body, mind, and society. Through interdisciplinary, participatory works, she challenges structures and invites collective experiences across performance, visual art, and site-specific practices. @idauvaas