Over the last eighteen months, company members attended various dance and theater workshops, including improvisation, shadow-puppetry and juggling, leading up to last week’s production directed by dancer and choreographer, Ryohei Kondo. Kondo is Saitama Arts Theater’s artistic director and founder of the popular all-male dance group, Condors. 

The mesmerizing two hours onstage emphatically proved that performance art needn’t be limited to professional artists. The lights rise on a stage strewn with discarded clothing. Two backdrops mirror this conceit with colorful jackets, pants or tops draped and crowded haphazardly across the backdrops. A cavernous tunnel at one side hints at passages through time or space. 

Part one, “The Calling,” unfolds as a series of vignettes, thematically linked to the calling towards spring. Kondo starts the performance by playing the accordion to accompany one female dancer until suddenly the stage fills with dancers: united in the choreography, they are the antithesis of a corps—a diverse and inclusive group, they are uniform in their lack of uniformity. Their chanting is complemented by simple beats to provide sound. It was a powerfully engaging opening. 

At turns humorous and wry, contemplative or whimsically elegant, each segment transitioned into the next with seamlessly. True to their ethos of inclusivity, a sign language interpreter, Tomomi Komatsu, translated the spoken words and songs.