TRIAD DANCE PROJECT Genealogy of Dance” features three Japanese female dancers/choreographers who have worked internationally with the New National Theatre Ballet, the Netherlands Dance Company (NDT), and the Forsythe Company. Through the careers of these three dancers, this ambitious project will look at the history of dance in the 20th century, from classical ballet, through modern and postmodern dance to contemporary dance, and connect it to the creation of the 21st century.

Hana Sakai, “The Dying Swan”/”The Dying Swan: The True Story of Its Death

　Sakai was a principal (highest rank) dancer in Japan’s first national ballet company, which opened in 1997, and has since left the company to pursue a wide variety of activities. Her first dance will be the classic ballet masterpiece “The Dying Swan” (revised from Fokin’s version first performed in 1907). Led onstage by the deep cello tones of Shike Udai, Sakai shows her unique presence as a ballet dancer by poetically dancing the death of a solitary swan with her resolutely beautiful toes, soft fluttering arms, and restrained expression based on her advanced technique.
　In contrast, “The Dying Swan: The Truth of Its Death” (premiered 2021), directed and choreographed by Toshiki Okada, vividly deconstructs this mythical ballet with a text that references actuality. Costumes were left as they were in “The Dying Swan,” and Sakai mounted the microphone onstage, and after a few preparatory exercises, the performance began. Sakai dances the flowing choreography of the classical version, interrupting to give a detailed live performance of her technique and performance for the cellists and the audience. The romantic pas de blais was replaced by a somewhat comical outward walk; in fact, the swan swallowed a plastic ball, gagged, and fainted in agony. At what point does the swan realize it is about to die? What was the cause of death? Sakai, with her simple dialogue and comedic timing, plays the death of a modern-day swan that has become an Internet legend linked to environmental issues and spreading through the Internet. If it is no longer the work of a single genius but the spread of information by an anonymous crowd that makes the fleeting sparkle of life eternal, what is really at stake?

Benefit Nakamura, solo from “BLACK ROOM”/”BLACK BIRD

　Nakamura danced for nine years with the Netherlands Dance Theater (commonly known as NDT), which was founded in 1959 as a fusion of ballet and modern dance, under the direction of artistic director Ily Kylian, who established the company’s international reputation. After leaving the company and returning to Japan, she has continued to work as an heir to Kylian’s works and as a choreographer and dancer of a profound and fertile inner world.
　First is “BLACK ROOM” (premiered in 2021), a solo piece choreographed and performed by Nakamura himself. A woman dressed in black and wearing a white mask steps onto the stage where darkness and silence reign, and her quiet voice echoes: “This is just like the room I was once in…a white room with no way out. In this “room of words that people have swallowed without speaking,” the woman gropes her way through the air and continues to make suggestive gestures of writing something in the air. As the music (composed by Haubrich, who often collaborates with Nakamura and Kylian) unfolds, the dance undulates and undulates, as if telling of inner conflicts, but the low crawling movements and sharp turns on the floor present an unforgettable view of despair with no way out. In a situation “isolated” from the outside world, Nakamura brilliantly creates an existential drama in which the balance between logos (language) and pathos (emotion), between the group and the ego, is lost, through the power of dance.
　The stage then shifted to “BLACK BIRD” (choreographed by Kilian, first performed in 2001). Blending with the somber traditional music of Georgia, Nakamura dances with a free reign of delicate light and dark and rich tones, transporting the audience to a world of blissful beauty that transcends everyday time. This work, created by Kylian for Nakamura, demonstrates Nakamura’s maturity as an artist with each repeat performance.

Duo from Yoko Ando’s “MOVING SHADOW”/”Study # 3

　Yoko Ando danced for 15 years with William Forsythe, the choreographer who led the Frankfurt Ballet and revolutionized the concept of ballet, and since returning to Japan has worked as a dancer, choreographer, and educator. MOVING SHADOW” (premiered in 2021) is a trio work by Ando and two up-and-coming young dancers (Nozomi Kinouchi and Yasuyu Yamaguchi). The blue space is filled with whispers and vague waves of sound, with Ando’s cool solo and Kinouchi in the background synchronizing their movements, but the mood is softened by the comical intrusion of Yamaguchi. Ando’s choreography abhors scheduled harmony, and he spins his dances by identifying, respecting, and interacting with the movements and movement vocabularies unique to each of the three bodies, delicately layering and shifting them. The result is a work with an irresistible appeal that combines a cold, hard beauty based on the choreographer’s meticulous calculations with a warm human touch that is not bound by the rules of choreography.
　The choreography “origin” of this piece is an excerpt from “Study # 3” (first performed in 2012), choreographed by Forsythe. Ando and Yasutake Shimaji, who was a member of the Forsythe Company for nine years at the same time, were entrusted with this duo part at the time of the first performance. Shimaji, tall with an imposing physique, and Ando, small and cat-like, betray every common sense of dance, not only in their movements but also in their voices and exchanges of movements. By living in the moment with extreme density, finite life acquires eternity – this fascinating paradox is vividly demonstrated by the two dancers.

Even Okami