It’s a surreal feast for the senses, eerie and elegant, poignant and profound. Akaji Maro, 83, founder of Dairakudakan, one of Japan’s leading butoh companies, dances various fantastical creatures alongside his company members and other guest performers, with additional dancers from K-Ballet Tokyo, including soloist Saya Okubo as the pilot’s fiancee among other roles. In addition to the shakuhachi, the koto (Japanese harp) is played on stage, and Mase Kikuchi, a specialist in folk songs from Tohno, also features. 

Act One juxtaposes scenes of violence and war with rural life. Sinuous dancers clad in blood-red unitards cut down by machine-gun fire contrast with an achingly gorgeous solo of the Yuki Onna (Saya Okubo as the snow woman), while the desolate pilot kneels in the snow. Another dance highlight is when Moriyama performs as a red kappa (water spirit), his body all discordant movement, swimming through space, seaweed flailing. Later, coyly sinister butoh dancers surround the pilot in his tormenting guilt before the compassionate Boy K intervenes. The mirrored choreography in their partnership—between the lost youth and the cynical soldier—is heartrending.  

Act Two opens with a tragic Tohno tale of a young woman who falls in love with her horse. The trio of dancers uncannily mimic the animal in a beautifully realized union of stagecraft and movement. Another highlight is the dance between young Onoe and Maro. With clever staging and a dialogue of choreography, Onoe’s playful antics become a symbolic transition to the next generation, aged to adolescence. Finally, the pas de deux between the pilot and his fiancee (Ishibashi and Okubo) epitomizes yearning and loss with fluid, flurried partner work, never quite touching. The performance concludes with a traditional Tohno sacred ritual, the deer dance, honoring all life as the pilot finally accepts death. Onoe leads the dancers with a dignity and charisma far beyond his 13 years. It was more than spectacular; it was pure magic.