Meet Toru Utsumi: The 60-year-old ‘dancing salaryman’ disrupting corporate Japan one groove at a time – CNBC TV18

As a brewing typhoon barrelled toward Tokyo, sending commuters scrambling for the subway and clutching inside-out umbrellas, one man was actively running toward the storm. Dressed in a soaking-wet suit, red tie, and sneakers, 60-year-old Toru Utsumi stood in the middle of Shinjuku Chuo Park, clicked his heels, and launched into a joyful, twirling homage to Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain.

“The more I move,” he told The New York Times, “the more my spirit rises, and I start feeling good.”

For anyone familiar with Japan’s buttoned-up corporate world, it's a bizarre sight. But to his combined following of more than one million fans across TikTok and Instagram, it is simply classic Utsumi. A corporate management consultant ditching boardroom etiquette for spontaneous street funk.

Known across social media as Japan’s ‘Dancing Salaryman’ (or @tohru_dance), Utsumi has become an unlikely digital sensation. On his days off and in between work, he transforms everyday public spaces—train station plazas, empty parking lots, ancient castle grounds, and cramped business hotel rooms—into his personal dance floor. As reported by the Times, Utsumi even maintains a running spreadsheet of over 1,000 songs to ensure he never repeats a track.

Also Read: Indian gig-goers are…

Original source: https://www.cnbctv18.com/entertainment/