In Europe, clown and mime performances have always been acknowledged as respected forms of entertainment, with some countries even establishing national circus schools. These types of entertainment have never enjoyed the same level of recognition in Japan, however, where clowning and mime have traditionally taken a back seat to most other genres of comic performance. Producer Keiichi Nishida's undertaking will hopefully change that by bringing an entire "festival of fools" to Tokyo for the first time.

Sumida International Fool Festival 2000 will be held April 20-30 at Theater X in Ryogoku and Hikifune Bunka Center (near Tobu and Keisei Hikifune stations), with the aim of providing quality street-type performances to adults and children. The festival will feature artists from both Japan and abroad whose common element is laughter.

Five performance groups have been invited from abroad: Duo Aringa, a piano and vocal duo from Italy, will perform a comedy musical; BP Zoom and Julian Chagrin will present their comedy sketches on stage; Masha Dimitri from Switzerland will perform a piece titled "Rehearsal Space," in which different artists share the same rehearsal space to practice their mime, music, dance, juggling and clowning; and England's Nola Rae will explore the character of the composer in her clown performance, "Mozart." Having Marcel Marceau as her master, she has incorporated into her mime not just elements of laughter, but other human emotions such as joy and anger as well.