WASHINGTON: Robots take the stage at the Kennedy Center for the next 10 days — along with about 450 human artists — as the performing arts center is transformed into a festival of Japanese music, theater, dance, exhibits and technical wizardry.

Beginning on Thursday, the dancing, trumpet-playing Toyota Partner Robot will help link Japan’s technical and performing arts, along with Honda’s people-friendly Asimo robot, which can recognise voices and faces. Another android robot, Kokoro, will greet visitors, answer questions and direct them to the bathroom.

“This robot exhibition hasn’t been seen anywhere before in this way,” said Alicia Adams, vice president of international programming for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. “The most advanced robots in the world will be here.”

The “Japan! Culture and Hyper Culture” festival, with a budget of more than $5 million, is funded primarily through the center’s Japan endowment that was established in the 1970s with support from the Japanese government.

Past cultural festivals have focused on China, France, Germany and other countries.

Dozens of theatrical, music and dance performances will showcase Japan’s traditional and ultramodern arts scene.

Robot engineers and inventors will be on hand for demonstrations and lectures on the future of robotics. The growing popularity of robots gives a glimpse into the future of Japanese culture.

Taeko Baba, a consultant on Japanese culture who advised the Kennedy Center staff, said Japanese and American people view robots very differently. While some may see robots as machines, “we think that robots are friends,” Baba said. “The Japanese are always looking for the next innovation.”

Besides robots, the Kennedy Center’s large corridors are filled with exhibits of Japanese sculpture, costumes, photography, colourful textiles, kimonos dating to the 1920s and more abstract art.

One of the most striking exhibits is artist Yayoi Kusama’s “Dots Obsession-Day” and “Dots Obsession-Night” — two rooms filled with polka dots. “Day” has black dots on a yellow background, and “Night” has black with yellow polka dots.

The psychedelic dots installation, along with architect Tadao Ando’s “Four Cubes to Contemplate Our Environment” — which explores sustainability with water, Co2, garbage and the future — help link to the “hyperculture” of post-World War II Japan, said Paris-based designer Adrien Gardere. Robots, fashion, anime and Japanese comics called manga now help define the culture.

During the festival, there will be North American and world premieres of some of the latest anime films, as well as a fashion show and a closing party featuring the latest in Tokyo street culture with Japanese hip hop and robot DJs. Kennedy Center restaurants will feature special Japanese fare.

“This I think is an extraordinary collection of artists,” Adams said.

Rather than just having visitors see a show, she said the goal is to give thousands of people a chance to “sample other aspects of the cultural world.”—AP