Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival Announces Its Programme for Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan
Announcing the details of our programme for Expo 2025 taking place in Osaka, Japan, where specially-commissioned performances will represent Irish cultural innovation and the country’s legacy as the authentic Home of Hallowe’en.
The festival’s presence at Expo 2025 Osaka is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Dublin City Council, and is curated and produced by Maria Schweppe, Co-Director of both Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival and Schweppe Curtis Nunn.
As part of the Ireland Pavilion at Expo 2025, Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival brings together acclaimed Irish artists and performers in a world-class programme from October 6th to 11th. The programme is designed to introduce the Irish tradition of Hallowe’en to Japanese audiences; connect Irish and Japanese audiences through shared traditions of storytelling, music and spectacle and showcase Ireland’s leading contemporary artists and Irish creativity, in line with the Irish Pavilion’s theme “Creativity Connects People” in venues across the vast Expo 2025 site which attracts up to 200,000 people per day.
Kwaidan
A major highlight of the programme is a screening of Kwaidan, Lafcadio Hearn’s iconic collection of ghost stories adapted for the screen by director Masaki Kobayashi, accompanied by a newly-commissioned musical live score composed and performed by Matthew Nolan and Seán Mac Erlaine, with Japanese artist and musician Tomoko Sauvage. Irish actor Conor Lovett (Gare St. Lazare, Ireland) will blend Irish and Japanese traditions in performing a live, English-language Benshi narration (an integral part of early Japanese silent cinema), directed by Irish Times Irish Theatre Award Winning Director Judy Hegarty Lovett (Gare St. Lazare, Ireland). A household name in Japan, Lafcadio Hearn, known as Koizumi Yakumo in Japan, was an Irish-Greek writer, translator, and teacher who introduced the culture and literature of Japan to the Western World. This event will also take place in Dublin, at the National Concert Hall, on Saturday 1 November during Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival 2025 (tickets on sale now).
Speaking on behalf of Dublin City Council, Lord Mayor Councillor Ray McAdam said that the City Council is delighted to be partnering with the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in showcasing Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival at the Expo 2025 in Osaka.
He said: “Bram Stoker, a native of Dublin, inspired this festival which was first established in 2012. It has evolved into a multi-disciplinary arts festival showcasing the global influence of Bram Stoker’s life and work, most notably his novel Dracula. This year, we are very excited to see how a global audience will respond to this world-class programming, before returning to Dublin where local audience can enjoy the annual festival which is due to take place from Friday 31st October to Monday 3rd November.”
Songs of the Spirits: East Meets West
Songs of the Spirits: East Meets West is a Gregorian chant performance by Schola Hyberniae, led by Dr. Giovanna Feeley. This event explores ancient and contemporary music that honours the dead, weaving together Gregorian chant, Irish tradition, and Japanese choral forms, including the “Cormacus Scripsit” arrangement, the earliest known Western three-part harmony. The performance will include chants for the dead, songs referencing the spiritual world from Irish manuscripts at Bram Stoker’s alma mater Trinity College Dublin, and from Marsh’s Library at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin This event will also take place in Dublin at St. Anne’s Church, Dawson St, on Sunday 2 November for Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival (tickets on sale now).
The festival’s programme was curated by Maria Schweppe, Co-Director of Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival.
“Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival is honoured to present this programme of events as part of Ireland at Expo’s cultural programme. Curated with the Ireland Pavilion’s theme of ‘Creativity Connects People as its starting point, and taking into account language barriers, the programme includes Irish artists working across music, film and spectacle and has been designed to be accessible to all audiences. We are excited to bring this programme, which reflects the Festival and Hallowe’en, to an international stage.”
Macnas, Galway’s legendary spectacle theatre company, will bring their acclaimed giant puppet Alf the Newt to Osaka for Expo 2025. For nearly 40 years, Macnas has mesmerised audiences worldwide with outdoor performances blending ancient Samhain traditions and bold theatrical invention. As darkness falls in Osaka, the Expo’s arena will ignite with swirling mist, dynamic lighting, and the awe-inspiring presence of Alf, a 20m-long, 5m-high illuminated amphibian. A hit at St. Patrick’s Festival Dublin in 2025, Alf will glide through the Expo 2025 crowd, breathing smoke, spraying bubbles and water, transforming onlookers into participants and recreating the wonder of Macnas’s iconic street parades in Dublin and Galway.
The infamous and iconic silent film Nosferatu will be screened at the Irish Pavilion with a live musical score composed and performed by Matthew Nolan with Thomas Haugh, Seán Mac Erlaine, and Sharon Phelan. This performance reprises work originally commissioned for Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival 2022. The film is the first, famously un-authorised on-screen adaptation of Dracula, and Nosferatu continues to terrify modern audiences with the unshakable power of its images.
Tickets for Expo 2025 are on sale now via their official website (book here).
Dublin City Council Bram Stoker Festival at Expo 2025 Osaka
Supported by The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Dublin City Council.
