Poetry, history and performance entwine in Daisydoze’s immersive spectacle

Your journey to a Shimokitazawa of the past starts in front of the train station. A poet speaks to you through your headphones. You follow his instructions, winding through the alleys, brightly lit shopping streets and darkened park paths. 

As cat-like performers dressed in blue beckon you along, the ordinary streets take on a dreamlike atmosphere. Eventually you find a hidden door that leads underground to a world of felines beneath Setagaya-Daita Station on the Odakyu Line.

This is no Haruki Murakami novel but rather the latest production by immersive theater company Daisydoze (stylized in lowercase). And even if you worry about getting lost, rest assured that almost every step of the way has been carefully choreographed.

“I’m making everyone walk at the same speed, following the same rhythm with timed footsteps, and they move through the city in the same way,” says artistic director Yui Takeshima, 38.

“I think most people won’t notice that because they’re not interacting with me, but I’m controlling everyone to walk the same way,” she continues, adding with a laugh that it’s like itazura — a bit of mischief.

Artistic director Yui Takeshima and creative producer Kaori Kondo founded Daisydoze in 2018, drawing inspiration from other immersive theater experiences like the award-winning “Sleep No More.” | HIROSHI HOMMA

Takeshima and creative producer Kaori Kondo, 37, who is also the company’s costume designer, are the creators behind “Cat Town” (“Nekomachi” in Japanese), which is being featured at Moon Art Night Shimokitazawa for the second year in a row.

The festival programming includes live music, workshops and installations scattered throughout the trendy Shimokitazawa neighborhood. After last year’s production of “Cat Town” sold out with 1,800 attendees, Daisydoze expanded the size of its cast to 15 performers for this year’s edition.

Founded in 2018 by Takeshima and Kondo, Daisydoze specializes in site-specific immersive theater experiences in which audience members move through a venue, or multiple venues, drawing close to the performers and becoming active participants in the work. The modern style of immersive theater started in London in the 2000s and was popularized by British theater company Punchdrunk’s award-winning show “Sleep No More.” 

The immersive theater experience “Cat Town” is showing as part of Moon Art Night Shimokitazawa for the second year in a row. | HIROSHI HOMMA

Daisydoze’s previous productions include “The Letters” (2025), a walk through Shibuya inspired by love letters written in postwar Japan, as well as “Anima” (2023) and “Dancing in the Nightmare” (2022), which are explorations of 26 specially designed rooms at BnA Wall, a boutique hotel in Nihonbashi with specially commissioned art.

Takeshima and Kondo started working together through a mutual friend who knew they shared a passion for immersive theater.

“We were both starting to create work in Japan after seeing ‘Sleep No More,’ and we really hit it off,” Kondo says. “We started talking about how, rather than making things within a small circle, we wanted to establish a creative company with projects that could travel the world.”

Locations are more than backdrops for Takeshima and Kondo. The pair delve deep into local history, memories, myths and landscapes to build their storylines. Those elements are then worked into a performance that combines theater, dance, music and installation art.

Kaori Kondo (left) and Yui Takeshima were introduced by a mutual friend who knew they shared a passion for immersive theater. | COURTESY OF DAISYDOZE

For the two of them, creating an immersive, site-specific experience presents a satisfying challenge that transcends conventional theater.

“The audience isn’t in a fixed position,” Takeshima says. “You don’t necessarily know where they’re going to stand or what they’re going to see, so you have to carefully control those things within the work.”

Compared to a conventional theater performance, an immersive, site-specific experience requires more oversight from the creative team. “You don't necessarily know where (the audience is) going to stand or what they're going to see,” says Yui Takeshima, “so you have to carefully control those things within the work.” | HIROSHI HOMMA

Another layer of complexity is that their productions can be situated in ordinary places frequented by business owners, residents or simply pedestrians.

Part of Kondo’s work as a producer involves fostering relationships with a wide range of communities tied to Daisydoze venues, from local institutions to residents with strong ties to the area.

“We listen to what the locals actually want the neighborhood to become through the work,” Kondo says. “Then we can say, ‘Maybe this part of the work could change in that direction,’ and bring them into the process.”

“Creating a place where the people in the neighborhood will protect and support the work is probably one of the biggest differences between being a theater producer and being a site-specific producer,” Takeshima adds. 

Early inspiration for “Cat Town” came about after they were approached to create a work in Maebashi, Gunma Prefecture, around the time they were also asked to develop a piece for Shimokitazawa. During the research process, Takeshima and Kondo learned about poet Sakutaro Hagiwara, who was born in Maebashi in 1886 and lived near Shimokitazawa until his death in 1942.

“Cat Town” was inspired by the eponymous short story by Sakutaro Hagiwara, a poet and writer who lived in Shimokitazawa in the early Showa era. | HIROSHI HOMMA

In recent years, Shimokitazawa has seen significant redevelopment, and Takeshima found that many of the locations that gave the neighborhood its grungy charm no longer existed. 

“It’s really hard to find a story … because they don’t have any stories left,” Takeshima says of areas that have gone through urban renewal.

Creating “Cat Town” involved going through archives and speaking with residents, looking for details of everyday life to bring color to historical events. Takeshima discovered there was a time when nine railway crossings in the area closed for 15 minutes every hour, splitting the neighborhood in half. It was inconvenient, but it was also part of people’s everyday lives. 

The sound of those crossings became part of the production’s audio track, momentarily conjuring the ambience of a Shimokitazawa that has largely disappeared.

Sakutaro Hagiwara, author of the 1935 short story “Cat Town,” observed that Japanese society of the day had begun to think and see the world in a uniform way, reminding him of skittish cats. | HIROSHI HOMMA

For the storyline, “Cat Town” draws on Hagiwara’s 1935 short story of the same name and the poet’s daily wanderings. After witnessing the transformation of Japanese society in the lead-up to World War II, Hagiwara observed that people around him had begun to think and see the world in a uniform way, reminding him of skittish cats. That sense of conformity, Takeshima says, has parallels to our own time.

“Nowadays we’re in the same situation in many ways because of politics, disasters and current events,” Takeshima adds.

That tension between being guided and finding your own way is built into the structure of “Cat Town.” The performance ultimately leads attendees to an underground space normally closed to the public. There, the performers bring the audience deeper into the strange world of “blue cats” before allowing them to emerge back onto familiar streets that feel subtly altered after the experience.

“We’ve created a new route that gives a stronger sense of catharsis,” Kondo says. “After the audience goes through that fantastical underground space, they’re suddenly pulled back into reality.”

Eventually, Kondo and Takeshima want Daisydoze’s work to reach audiences beyond Japan. The pair, whose website is available in both English and Japanese, is also thinking about how to help further develop immersive theater. Takeshima has been holding small seminars on the genre and hopes eventually to establish a kind of laboratory dedicated to its development.

As Daisydoze continues its work, the creative team hopes to uncover more stories hidden in plain sight and encourage audiences to see familiar surroundings differently.

In a city like Tokyo, where layers of history and forgotten memories can still be found beneath the surface of everyday life, there is no shortage of places to explore.