Tokyo Dance Night Report

The first edition of the Tokyo Dance Night took place on September 14 in the Netherlands, at the concert hall Tivoli de Helling, in Utrecht. The event was slightly inspired by Tokyo Decadence, an event from the Japanese club scène and attracted a variety of people. Even though the event wasn’t sold out, the hall was nicely filled and a bit part of the audience was dressed up to fit the theme, with many colorful cyber gothic outfits.

The event consisted of three DJ sets, as well as a performance from the band Aural Vampire. The DJs taking part in the event were DJ Raveman, DJ SiSeN and DJ Takuya. DJ Takuya, better known as the designer Takuya Angel, had also brought various clothing items and accessories from his collection, which were presented in the foyer of the hall. The table was full of colourful shirts, cute, colourful accessories and even some plushies. Also Aiko, Takuya’s wife, was present and helped with the sales, wearing a creation of the renowned Takuya Angel brand herself.

Also unique merchandise of the colourful and quirky DJ SiSEN was sold: little wooden shapes with little faces. The first look would tell one “cute figures”, but upon closer inspection, the seemingly innocent figures were very reminiscent of a man’s private parts, albeit rather small!

DJ Raveman, one half of the band Aural Vampire opened the evening with his DJ set. As always, the DJ’s face was disguised by a mask, and he was wearing black clothing as he mixed, setting the mood for the evening already. After a little while, female vocalist EXO-CHIKA joined him, and the performance of Aural Vampire began.

It wasn’t the band’s first performance in the Netherlands and it seemed that the Dutch audience was happy to see the duo back again. The audience was dancing to their music, a mix of new-wave, minimal electro, EBM and even some bubblegum pop. EXO-CHIKA sang excellently just as always, and her appearance was simply stunning: long, beautiful hair, a stylish black dress and vampire teeth and she seemed totally comfortable on stage as she sang and danced. Raveman on the other hand stayed more at the background, still disguised by his trademark mask. Halfway through their performance, the performer Tokyogoddess Coco joined them on stage with her dance act, which involved a whip.

After Aural Vampire left, DJ Takuya took over the stage and started mixing. Not only did he serve the fans of dance music but also made the fans of Japanese music happy by playing mixes from artists like Malice Mizer in an interesting and danceable way. While Takuya Angel was mixing, Coco was dancing around with a big fan.

When Takuya Angel left, fans of DJ SiSeN gathered around the stage as he got on stage and started mixing. His appearance was striking, and in the typical SiSeN fashion. The DJ was dressed in a colourful outfit with a blue, pink and purple hair fall made of thick yarn, and blue make-up. He was wearing many accessories, such as a pacifier, and a pink, magic wand that he swayed around, fitting quite nicely to his very unique look. During his set, he also walked and danced around on stage and threw little gifts for the fans into the audience.

After that, the event came to an end already, but all the artists that had participated in the Tokyo Dance Night, made their way over to the foyer for a signing session first. They chatted with the Dutch fans, signed things, and got their photo taken with the many fans. It happened to be DJ SiSeN’s birthday on that day, so he received a few presents from his fans.

Unfortunately, the event was really over then and the last few people slowly made their way to their exit. Also the artists left: they would head to Berlin, Germany, for another Tokyo Dance Night event on the next day.

The first edition of the Tokyo Dance Night in the Netherlands had definitely been a success and hopefully the event will return some time!


JaME would like to thank the artists, and Astan.
Photos by Chenka