*Subtitles: Choose “Subtitles/CC” in the “Settings” (gear icon) at the bottom right of the YouTube video.
*Subtitles may not show with multiple languages or overlapping audio.

This session brings together people from diverse backgrounds—across disability, nationality, race, region, and gender—to connect, build empathy through dialogue and culture, and explore how we can co-create a future where all lives shine. The key message is We Are All Minorities! With Sachiko Nakajima, producer of the Jellyfish Pavilion, as moderator, we reflect on our own uniqueness and envision a society where everyone can freely express what they love.

Speakers include puppeteer Kazuhide Tsujimoto on traditional arts, human rights, and social issues; Rossella Menegazzo from the Italy Pavilion on local cultures and Expo possibilities; Ryosuke Nakanishi, director of No Side, on life with children with severe disabilities; and Hikaru Hayakawa, a wheelchair-using artist from No Side, sharing what art means to her through the Expo experience. A performance of Awa Ningyo Joruri will follow.

【Reflection】
Women's Pavilion “WA” – Inclusive Jam Event Report

At the Women’s Pavilion “WA” in the Expo site, we held Inclusive Jam — We Are All Minorities!, a gathering of dialogue and culture. This event brought together people from diverse backgrounds and identities—across themes of gender, disability and illness, nationality and ethnicity—to connect, share, and enjoy each other’s company, while also stepping into territories that are often difficult to discuss. The aim was to explore, together, how we might build a future society in which diverse lives can shine in their own ways.

In the first part, under the theme “The Power of Expression and Culture Woven by Diverse Beings,” the session was moderated by Sachiko Nakajima, producer of the Jellyfish Pavilion. The speakers were Kazuhide Tsujimoto, traditional performer and inheritor of the Awa Deku Hako Mawashi puppetry art; Ryosuke Nakanishi, director of the inclusive welfare facility No Side (and “Okami” of the Jellyfish Pavilion); and Hikaru Hayakawa, wheelchair user, artist, and Kurage Madler. Each shared authentic stories from their respective fields—culture, welfare, and artistic expression—illuminating where these intersect. Together, they reflected on human rights through traditional arts, daily life with children who have profound disabilities, and moments when art restores the will to live. Their voices resonated around the key phrase “We Are All Minorities,” inviting everyone to look within—to notice the unevenness and contradictions in themselves, to accept rather than deny them. By revisiting the histories from which discrimination emerged, the audience was deeply moved to reflect personally on these issues.

After the second part, Tsujimoto and his troupe performed the Awa Deku Hako Mawashi. The atmosphere transformed entirely: the puppets seemed to come alive, changing expressions as they danced and sang, leaving the audience breathless. This performance revealed the profound essence of regional performing arts—the vitality and rising energy of life cultivated over generations. It was a living embodiment of the event’s theme: a moment when “diverse lives shine together.”

Through music, culture, and dialogue, Inclusive Jam became a space where people—and even puppets—reconnected with one another and with society. True to its name, each participant brought their own rhythm, improvising and co-creating the future in harmony. We Are All Minorities—everyone is a minority; vulnerability becomes strength. It was a moment when that truth came vividly to life.

【Post EXPO Initiatives】
Building on the momentum of Inclusive Jam — We Are All Minorities! at the Women’s Pavilion “WA,” our Kurage community (the Jellyfish Pavilion team) will continue to nurture and expand these encounters into new forms of collaboration. In particular, our partnership with Kazuhide Tsujimoto, inheritor of the traditional art of Awa Deku Hako Mawashi, represents an important step toward exploring new possibilities in culture and the performing arts. Mr. Tsujimoto has long been engaged in sharing the history of human rights and discrimination across Japan, expressing through traditional performance the dignity of life and the essence of “living together.” We, the Kurage team, deeply resonate with his work. Through his artistry, we aim to learn about the pain, prayers, hope, and even despair that dwell within the heart of human expression. Together with citizens, we wish to continue creating spaces where we can think, converse, dance, and sing as one. Looking ahead, we also hope to collaborate with KURAGE Band, seeking new “forms of resonance” where tradition and improvisation, local and global, intertwine.

Our collaboration with the No Side welfare facility will also continue beyond the Expo. Led by Ryosuke Nakanishi, the facility’s director (and “Okami” of the Jellyfish Pavilion), we plan to hold ongoing Inclusive Jam: We Are All Minorities! dialogues and exchange events at Hitotsunagi Café in Higashi-Osaka (operated by No Side). Together with Hikaru Hayakawa (Kurage Madler), a wheelchair-using artist, we will organize art workshops and creative programs in which children, people with disabilities, seniors, and many others can participate. Through these efforts, we aim to expand spaces for learning, play, and expression that transcend boundaries and connect diverse individuals.

We are determined not to let Expo 2025 remain a one-time celebration, but to carry forward the relationships and rhythms of resonance that were born there into the future. We envision a society where diverse lives meet, support one another, and embrace each other’s differences—where vulnerability transforms into strength, barriers dissolve, and everyone can live freely to their own rhythm. Carrying the afterglow of the Expo as a new beginning, we will continue to expand the circle of Inclusive Jam—from our communities, to the world.