Yokai Matsuri: Musician Maïa Barouh evokes Japanese folklore at the Petite Halle de la Villette

On Sunday, May 31, the Petite Halle de la Villette (Paris 19th arrondissement) will host the first edition of Yokai Matsuri, a festival created and run by the Franco-Japanese singer and flautist Maïa Barouh—daughter of Pierre Barouh, founder of the Saravah label. The event will continue on June 28 and July 28, from 11 a.m. to midnight, with free entry until 20 p.m. and a musical program starting at 19:30 p.m. Conceived as a contemporary version of matsuri—the popular neighborhood festivals that have existed in Japan for hundreds of years—the festival is also inhabited by yokai, mythological creatures from Japanese folklore, both menacing and mischievous. Each evening takes the form of a masked ball where the boundaries between stage and audience, between tradition and underground, between human and creature, are deliberately blurred.

An idea that had been gestating for twenty years, three evenings as a preview.

The idea had been brewing for some twenty years in Maïa Barouh's mind, fueled by her years spent in Tokyo's queer underground and cabaret scene. "Anything hybrid interests me. This festival aims to celebrate the strange, everything that doesn't fit into any boxes," she explained to France Télévisions. For this first installment, the invited groups come from Europe but are all rooted in Japanese culture. On May 31, Mitsune—a Berlin-based quartet made up of Japanese musicians and their Australian and Greek collaborators—blends shamisen tsugaru, percussion, bass, and ritualistic psychedelia. Their album Hazama (2022) reached the top 10 of the Transglobal World Music Chart. The stages will also feature DJ Mask, co-founder of the 180g label specializing in the Japanese music scene, and the collective Les Nekomata, dancers and circus performers who emerge from the audience to disrupt its perceptions. On June 28, the Belgian-Japanese duo Alek et les Japonaises will bring their hybrid pop, blending city pop, tropicalia, and new wave. July 28 will feature the Seppuku Pistols, a Tokyo-based collective of around twenty members who combine punk, traditional instruments (shamisen, biwa, shakuhachi, taiko), and Edo-era heritage in street and trance performances. An expanded three- or four-day version of the festival is planned for October 2026.