May 10, 2026

筒｜tsu-tsu: A Date of Birth Leaves No One Behind

Yul Cho & Letian Lois Ding in Conversations with 筒｜tsu-tsu

With backgrounds in Japanese classical dance and acting, tsu-tsu invented a practice he calls “Documentary Acting” – researching and embodying real people through acting. His ongoing Birthday Project (01-25-1997) traces strangers worldwide who share his birthdate. There are roughly 200,000 people born that day – enough to run a city.

tsu-tsu lives and works in Yamanashi Prefecture and is currently an IASPIS resident in Stockholm, where he will perform on May 21st, 2026. We visited his IASPIS studio and spoke with him about why he wanted to become his friend who died in a car accident, the political gesture buried inside a birthday party, and what it might mean to become the complexity of the world itself.

TSU-TSU: This is a statement for my upcoming US project — it’s also the same one I’m doing here. 

He shows us the statement. Some lines read:

"I place my body in front of the audience as a hollow passage they walk through. It is the only politics I have right now." 

 

"The three countries are for parallax. Sweden’s social democratic body. Japan’s collectivist body coming apart."

 

"A date of birth leaves no one behind."

YUL: So you’re connecting three countries.

TSU-TSU: I’m going to make a future film about Sweden and another film about the US. This project can be a live performance, an exhibition, and it’s also a lifelong project.

YUL: Do you think labelling yourself as a contemporary artist is limiting?

TSU-TSU: I don’t feel it’s necessary. I never studied art in school. I studied Japanese traditional dance from age six – I got used to being on stage my whole life. Then I got an opportunity to work as an actor in theatre and movies. I awakened to the possibilities of acting and began to explore acting not for the sake of narrative, but as a means of communication. Driven by a desire to remember or understand another person as much as complex way, I started documentary acting. 

YUL: So can you tell us more about your birthday project – how you came across the idea, how it’s going, and your future plans in Sweden? 

TSU-TSU: I interview existing people and try to become them. My first project was after a friend passed away in a car accident. I held a funeral party at my house, and everyone gathered and talked. He was open-minded, but also sometimes annoying or stupid. I wanted to remember him in a complex way because I really believe in dividualism – that you have multiple personalities, no true self. Each personality is made by encounters with others. If I let people recognise him through only one perspective, I thought I would lose his complexity, which means I would lose him – and that would mean losing the part of me that only he knew. So I couldn’t stand people seeing him in a simple way. 

Then I found a recording of our conversation from just before he passed away – three hours, by chance. I transcribed everything and acted him more than 100 times. What an actor does is take a line – “I don’t like you” – and say it in many ways, thinking different emotions. In a normal theatre, you research the context. But [when documentary acting] I interview the person, or their family and friends, to find out how they really felt and thought at that moment. Then, through acting, I try to feel the same as them. I know it’s almost impossible, but at least I want to try. For me, documentary acting is always a way of communication, not an art form.

My second project was about a guy who killed himself because he was involved in a huge scandal in Japan. The government sold public land at a very low price to someone. When a journalist uncovered it, the buyer said, “I’m a friend of the prime minister.” The prime minister then promised to quit politics if he was involved. So government officials tried to cover it up.

Toshio Akagi was a regular government worker. He was forced to falsify official documents. He didn’t want to, but he did, and then killed himself out of guilt.

His widow fought the government to reveal the truth. I became friends with her because I was living with a documentary filmmaker working on the case. Many journalists approached her, but she grew tired of repeating the story. Everyone wanted a simple narrative to criticize the government – the guy who was in the tragedy, the guy who has justice. But as a friend, I could see she was losing the real texture of his life.

The case ended when the government paid to settle the trial. She couldn’t ask more. So I thought I could do something for her. I interviewed her about ordinary moments – one year before the scandal, a normal day from waking up to going to work. She realized she hadn’t remembered those small details for a long time. We discovered new things together, every day.  

tsu-tsu shows 全体の奉仕者 Servant of the Whole - Archive Movie (2022), his documentary acting of Toshio Akagi.

YUL: Was this a set?

TSU-TSU: It was in an exhibition. People watched through this [blurry plastic curtain]. All they could see were shadows. No details.

I blocked the view on purpose. As you can see in my manifesto for documentary acting, I don’t want to show exactly what kind of person he was. Acting has a superpower – it can tell so much, more than reality, and people easily recognise it as real. But it’s just my perspective. I wanted to show that I’m really trying to reach out to him, to feel what he felt. It’s about connection. If there’s no window, it’s too obvious. One scene was almost an hour, and the exhibition ran seven hours a day for ten days. I acted seven times a day, even with no audience. 

At the end of each performance, I broke cups. On the floor, there were so many broken cups that people couldn’t tell how many times I had acted – only through the objects. That’s how I show the process.

So those two projects were super important to me. I never wanted to be an artist – I just felt I had to do this. Later, I got opportunities to show my work. But having an exhibition as a deadline forces me into new areas, and I always need a person to act – it takes at least four months to act one person. The art world normally doesn’t allow that time. I got tired of always going to new places. So I wanted to build long-term projects.

That’s when I started the birthday project. I went to New York and found someone – a really nice guy from Nebraska. He was just visiting for three days. I want to do this for my entire life. There are 200,000 people in the world who share my exact birthday. I want to meet everyone as much as possible and act everyone.

tsu-tsu shows Back-flow to the junction (2019), him walking through the city, holding a sign, asking people. After searching for a while, finally he comes across a person with the exact same birthday.

YUL: You can tell from the way you found each other – there’s an instant kinship. It’s such a joy, coming from the element of chance. It makes you think about how many connections you have with random people. 

TSU-TSU: It’s not really about the birthday – it’s about the beauty of randomness in every human encounter. I always want to do something to make the world better. I want to build an actual community through this project. The number 200,000 is interesting too. In Japan, a municipality of 200,000 or more can be designated as a "core city." The government considers that the population is sufficient to administer urban functions. There's no utopia in real life, but we've already been part of this imaginary community since the beginning of our lives. I'm going to make it happen through walking and meeting people. Eventually, I hope others will find their own birthday twins.

Maybe I’ll make a public artwork in Sweden. I’ll hold a birthday party, and imagine, if TV picks it up. Someone watching will think, “That’s nice – and easy to do.” So they’ll do the same on another day. Then someone else will do it the next day. Eventually, every day, people will gather under my public art. That’s my dream.

The beautiful thing about birthdays is that everyone has one. If you’re sitting in a dark corner, someone can still knock on your door. I believe that’s beautiful.

YUL: You said there’s no utopia in real life. I agree – because friction will always be there. But that’s okay. In fact, it’s part of the beauty. And your birthday project is still a perfect reminder that we’re connected, friction and all.

Can you tell us how you found the Swedish database and how you want to work with it?

TSU-TSU: It was my second day here. I didn’t know about it before. I had been working on this project for four or five years and had found 45 people – I thought I’d done a lot. I was planning to walk around with a signboard. But on the second night, I had dinner with Swedish friends and told them my plan. One friend said, “You don’t have to do that – just Google it.” 

For the first time, I found so many people. Now I feel I have to focus on this project. I want to meet everyone by walking through the whole of Sweden, because it’s hard to meet people in rural areas with a signboard – that works better in cities. This is a great chance to meet people everywhere. I want to embody the scale of the human body – how far it is, why people live there. I want to walk. 

I’ve postponed the details because I’m planning to come back. I’ve sent letters to people in Stockholm and got replies, and done some interviews. Maybe I’ll do the same. If they reject me, that’s also part of the project. Maybe ten years later, when this project becomes famous, they’ll change their mind – that’s also beautiful. I know I can’t meet 200,000 people. I might act 100 more in my whole life because each takes four months. That limitation is also beautiful.

LOIS: There’s a Chinese concept – a star chart based on your birth time. People used to post: “Have you ever thought about others who share your birthday? If the chart is the same, do you have the same personality and life path?” I found a girl with the same birthday, and we had very similar thoughts.

TSU-TSU: I believe we can find a connection with anybody. If a star sign says you have a certain destiny – that can mean anything. We can find meaning in why we met someone, if we really focus on them.  

YUL: Maybe people find similarities because they’re looking for them – because they want to believe in a connection. And if you try that with anyone, I think you’ll always find something. 

I wanted to ask how practicing documentary acting has changed you. How do you feel after acting all these people? 

TSU-TSU: I’ve acted three birthday twins until now. Like I said – we can find a connection with anyone. They were born at the exact same moment as me. They could be my alternative lives. Through my experiments, I’ve really come to believe this.

I can’t complain about my life. Of course, there are things you can’t control – things that come from nowhere and make life hard. That’s happening all over the world right now.

But I believe these 200,000 people can become a real community and help each other. That’s what I want to create. Honestly, this is my political gesture.

Maybe we are the same age. Our generation went through terrible times. Sometimes I watch old TV shows – everyone looks so happy. They had hope for the future. Their idea of happiness was different from ours. We feel like there’s no hope left.

But I don’t want to just complain or call it bad luck. To me, this is a generational political movement. Let’s find each other. Let’s come together. Let’s think about our generation. And let’s do something – together.

YUL: After you finish each documentary acting, do you feel like you’re still carrying that person with you? What is that like – is it hard to carry different people inside you?

TSU-TSU: Yes, I carry them with me. It’s no different from real life – I just meet more people than most. I can’t say whether it’s hard or not. It just is.

But here’s what I wonder. Once you truly understand two opposing perspectives, you hesitate to take a side – because you see the truth in both. Maybe that’s what I’ll become in the end. I’ll meet 200,000 people. I’ll ask them everything. I’ll become the complexity of the world itself.

Then what will I say? I’m so curious to find out. That’s what I want to reach.

YUL: But what if you meet someone with the same birthday, someone you’re supposed to be connected to, and they believe something you find truly wrong or something that clashes with your values. How do you embody someone like that?

TSU-TSU: Honestly, I’ve never acted that kind of person. But I have been rejected – someone said I couldn’t act them because our blood is different. Usually, if we have very different opinions, they don’t let me act. But I feel I have to work on that – I would go to that person many times, explain what I want to do, and ask about them.

YUL: Do the people you act learn things about you as well?

TSU-TSU: This process also asks a lot of time from the people I interview. So I have to care about what they receive from me and from the project.

The last person I worked with – you saw the 15-minute film Let me play you (2026) – he is turning 30 next year. He had a difficult time: wanted to change career, broke up with his girlfriend, wanted to become a better person but had something in his mind he hadn’t overcome. 

We collaborated to find what that was. We found a scene. I acted, and he directed me – “I wouldn’t say it like that.” Through that process, he saw himself through me. I hope he got something. It becomes therapeutic sometimes, even though I don’t try to make it that way.

LOIS: Do you plan to stay in Sweden after the IASPIS residency?

TSU-TSU: My visa expires just after. I’m planning to come back at the end of 2027. I’m looking at master’s programs here or in Europe with flexible structures, or long-term residencies.

Also, from February 2027, I’ll have the biggest show of my life – three months at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. A group show with four performance artists.