Tachikawa Culture Guide: Ballet, Ice, Anime and Art Near the Station

A ballet competition’s Japan round, Mao Asada’s rink, an anime festival and 109 street artworks: where Tachikawa’s culture is heading, all near the station.

日本語で読む（Japanese version）

On the afternoon of 4 October 2026, about sixty young ballet dancers were to dance on a grand flight of steps eight minutes’ walk from Tachikawa Station. So it had been announced. The stage was the Cascade at GREEN SPRINGS, steps that people usually walk up and down carrying shopping bags.

They were not tourists. They were competitors in the Japan round of an international ballet competition run by an educational non-profit based in New York. Those who win through go on to the finals in the United States. The place where children aiming for the world’s stages gathered for that round was not Shinjuku, not Yokohama, but Tachikawa (立川).

When you hear “culture in Tachikawa”, what comes to mind? Artworks hiding among the bollards in front of the station? A cinema famous for its thunderous sound? Or nothing at all? To be honest, for a long time I too thought of Tachikawa as “a town for shopping and changing trains”.

But line up the official announcements and city plans of the last few years, and a different picture appears. A hall that holds 2,500 people has gone up, and an ice rink. An anime pilgrimage site has become an autumn festival. The 109 artworks placed thirty years ago are being cared for with the next thirty years in mind. Why do dancers aiming at the world come to Tachikawa? Where is Tachikawa’s culture heading? I decided to carry those questions with me and walk through the town’s “next”.

Where is Tachikawa’s new culture being born? A 2,500-seat hall and an international ballet competition

The first answer stands across from Showa Kinen Park (Showa Memorial Park): TACHIKAWA STAGE GARDEN, in one corner of GREEN SPRINGS. It has about 2,500 seats, or more than 3,000 people with standing room. Its operators describe it as “the largest in the Tama district” (Tama being the long western half of Tokyo beyond the 23 central wards). The Tachihi group opened it in 2020.

The hall has a slightly unusual trick. The wall behind the second-floor seats slides open and connects to an outdoor stage. It is built as if the indoor hall could breathe straight out into the plaza outside. Its English pages introduce it as the very first privately managed live entertainment venue in the Tama district, available for rental 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. I don’t know what anyone would put on at three in the morning, but apparently, if you wanted to, you could.

At that hall, from 29 September to 7 October 2026, the international ballet competition “YOUTH GRAND PRIX (YGP) 2027 JAPAN” was held. Its parent, Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP), is an educational non-profit based in New York. Since its founding in 1999, it says, more than 200,000 dancers have taken part and it has awarded more than 5 million dollars in scholarships. Its mission is to open opportunities to young dancers aged 9 to 19, whatever their nationality.

The Japan round began in 2002. According to YGP Japan, it was at the time the first Western ballet competition in Japan to give scholarships to young dancers. Tachikawa was chosen as the Tokyo venue for the competition because the Tachihi group invited it, in cooperation with YAGP, YGP Japan and the Kumakawa Foundation, according to Tachihi Holdings’ announcement. The supporters included Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs, the city of Tachikawa and the Tachikawa Tourism and Convention Association.

To go with the competition, a free “TACHIKAWA TACHIHI Ballet Festival” was organised at GREEN SPRINGS on 3 and 4 October. In the programme as announced, ballet groups from Tachikawa would dance Swan Lake with a fountain as the stage. Tachikawa’s swans dance not on a lake but at a fountain. The “YGP MINI Project”, in which children aged 6 to 8 dance, was in its second year; the announcement says the previous year drew more than 500 spectators.

What I found interesting was the way these events were arranged. Children’s serious competition aimed at the world, and a free plaza where passing families stop to watch, overlapping on the same weekend within a few minutes’ walk. Showing the real thing from outside the fence. That, probably, is the key to reading the “next” of this town’s culture.

But here I want to go back in time for a moment. Since when has stage culture had roots in Tachikawa?

Tachikawa’s stages back then: a civic hall in 1974, and a festival that lasted five years

Tachikawa’s civic hall opened on 11 January 1974 (Showa 49). (Showa is the imperial era that ran from 1926 to 1989; Japanese local records count years by era, so I give both.) One basement floor and five floors above ground. For a long time it was known affectionately as “Amu Tachikawa”; it reopened after renovation in January 2014 and is now “Tamashin RISURU Hall”, with naming rights held by Tama Shinkin Bank, a cooperative regional bank. (In Japanese ears “risuru” has a squirrel in it: risu.) The story of the civic hall that answers to a squirrel’s name is told in this series’ piece on the town’s cultural facilities.

Around that civic hall, citizens have long made their own stages. According to the city’s Fifth Culture Promotion Plan, the citizens’ culture festival has more than sixty years of history, and the “Tachikawa Theatre Festival”, which brings together theatre companies from the Tama area, has been held every year since 1991 (Heisei 3).

There was one period when the whole town struck out in a big way. According to the city’s page on its ordinance, for five years from fiscal 1998, citizens, companies, schools and the city joined forces to stage the “Tachikawa Summer Music Festival”, the “Tachikawa International Art Festival” and the “Tachikawa Performing Arts Festival”. A festival of only five years, at the turn of the century. That experience led to the “Tachikawa City Ordinance on Town-Making through Culture and the Arts”, passed unanimously by the city assembly in December 2004. The ordinance deliberately left the word “promotion” out of its name, and laid down that the bearers of culture are the citizens. What’s more, “citizens” here includes not only people who live in the city but also the schools and companies active in it.

Back then, Tachikawa’s stage was inside the civic hall. Today, the stage has come out to the front of the fountain, onto the grand steps, onto the walls of the underpass. And in the autumn of 2026, three parties in this town signed one sheet of paper about the stages to come.

A joint declaration tied by music: what Kunitachi College of Music, Tachihi and the city agreed

On 14 September 2026, at Tachikawa City Hall, Kunitachi College of Music, Tachihi Holdings and the city of Tachikawa signed a “Joint Declaration on Town-Making through Music and Culture”. According to the city’s announcement, the three confirmed that they would each use their expertise, facilities, people, local resources and networks to push further with efforts to raise the appeal and value of the area through music and the arts, and that they would keep working together to increase the opportunities for children, and many other citizens, to enjoy and learn music.

A college with “Kunitachi” in its name has joined a declaration of the city of Tachikawa. (Kunitachi is the neighbouring city.) For anyone who worries about such things: Kunitachi College of Music moved to Tachikawa in 1978, and its campus is in the city of Tachikawa.

The first big stage under the declaration is the “Special Concert for the Grown-ups of the Future” on 12 December 2026. The Kunitachi College of Music Brass Orchester will play Beethoven’s Ninth arranged for wind band, together with ballet. Local children will join as a chorus, and the wind band of Tachikawa Municipal Tachikawa Daishichi (No. 7) Junior High School will take the stage with them. This is the third year of the three-party concert. Tickets are 1,500 yen for adults and 500 yen for high-school students and younger, and the venue is TACHIKAWA STAGE GARDEN.

A week later, on 19 December, the same hall hosts “TACHIKAWA Sound of CHRISTMAS 2026”, a Christmas concert built around an orchestra with singers from pop, opera and musicals. Tachihi’s announcement is rather candid. Last year the concert was free, but the response exceeded expectations and some people couldn’t get in. So this year it will be a paid performance with all seats reserved. Too popular, so now it costs money. Concerts, too, can get promoted that way. From this year “TACHIKAWA” goes into its name, and the hope is to grow it into a regular feature of Tachikawa’s winter.

There is music closer to home, too. The “Tachikawa Ittai Music Festival”, in which music and dance performances happen all at once in plazas and shops around the city, has been held every year since 2012. According to the figures in the city’s plan, 491 groups applied to perform in fiscal 2023. Nine short of the 500-group target. Tachikawa’s street corners are overflowing with people who want to make some noise.

Tachikawa’s cultural future, in numbers

• about 2,500 — seats at TACHIKAWA STAGE GARDEN. Standing, more than 3,000. The biggest vessel in Tama.
• 1999 and 2002 — the year the international ballet competition YAGP was born, and the year its Japan round began. That round is now held in Tachikawa.
• 30 m × 60 m — the main rink at MAO RINK TACHIKAWA TACHIHI. International size, with a permanent 1,000-seat stand.
• 8 — the number of consecutive times the city of Tachikawa has been chosen among the “88 Anime Spots in Japan You Want to Visit” for A Certain Scientific Railgun (up to the 2025 edition).
• over 10,000 — the cumulative number of municipal primary-school children who have toured the works on Faret Tachikawa art-appreciation classes. Tachikawa’s primary schoolers may know more about art than its adults.
• 50.3% → 53.0% — the share of citizens who say they “regularly have opportunities to experience culture and the arts”: the fiscal 2023 figure, and the fiscal 2029 target. Another 2.7 points, to be gained over five years.

Traveller’s detour quiz

Collaborations between the city of Tachikawa and the anime A Certain series have sold products using Tachikawa specialities. Which of these collaboration items uses Tachikawa’s Tokyo udo, a crisp edible plant prized in Japanese cooking?

• A: udo inari (sushi rice in a fried-tofu pouch)
• B: udo pie
• C: udo ramen

The answer comes near the end of this article.

So far, ballet and music. But Tachikawa’s “next” also has a colder stage. On the ice.

A new landmark on the ice: MAO RINK TACHIKAWA TACHIHI

Five minutes’ walk from Tachihi Station on the Tama Monorail, in Izumicho, Tachikawa, is “MAO RINK TACHIKAWA TACHIHI”, an ice rink supervised by the figure skater Mao Asada. An opening ceremony was held on 8 November 2024, and it opened to the public on 11 November.

According to the Tachihi group, the site covers 9,000 square metres. A main rink of the international size, 30 by 60 metres, with a permanent stand of 1,000 seats, a 24-by-40-metre sub-rink, a ballet studio, a restaurant and a training gym. The sound equipment was built in from the start with ice shows in mind. A ballet studio inside an ice rink makes sense, I suppose, because expression on ice starts with expression on the floor. Here it connects with the ballet story above.

At the opening ceremony, Asada is reported to have said that building a rink with her own name had been her dream since childhood, and that her next goal was to produce skaters from this rink who could succeed on the world stage and become world number one. A rink that aims at world number one is five minutes from a monorail station. A child who comes skating with the family at the weekend may watch the practice next door and quietly decide something.

Also near Tachihi Station is ARENA TACHIKAWA TACHIHI, which holds up to 3,000 people. It is home to the Tachikawa Dice, who moved to B.LEAGUE ONE in 2026 (B.LEAGUE is Japan’s professional basketball league), and for the home opener on 3 October it was announced that, if they won, the most valuable player would receive 365 cans of Tachihi Beer. A year’s supply. The player who receives them will have to clear a year in the liver’s diary too. The arena and the sports story I leave to this series’ piece on sport.

A hall, a rink, an arena. The Tachihi group owns about 980,000 square metres of land in Tachikawa, about one twenty-fifth of the city’s area, Tachihi writes. It began as a company that built aircraft. The land where aircraft factories stood is now land for dance, ice and ball games.

But Tachikawa’s cultural “next” is not happening only inside big vessels. There is also culture for which the pavements in front of the station, the lawns of the park and the view from the monorail window are the stage.