Condors in Flight

Based in Tokyo, Condors is an all-male contemporary dance troupe founded by director and choreographer Ryohei Kondo in 1996. In their 30th year, the company retains all their original members with a few new additions.

Performance

Condors: “Cigarettes and Alcohol”

Place

Space Zero, Shinjuku, Tokyo, February 21, 2026

Words

Kris Kosaka

Condors in “Cigarettes and Alcohol.” Photograph by HARU

Each performance is a collaborative endeavor by all the company members, an upbeat blend of dance, comedy sketches, social commentary, live music, shadow puppetry, acrobatics—a kind of kitchen-sink, anything goes approach to dance entertainment.Beyond Kondo’s distinctive choreography and a tendency to don traditional school uniforms during performances, you never know what to expect with a Condors’ production.

Their newest, “Cigarettes and Alcohol,” is a series of vignettes loosely connected with the theme of Japanese food culture. Before the performances, their website made an open call for submissions of original, three-line poems, senryu, on the topic.

The opening sketch establishes the ongoing food conceit with Toshihiro Hashizume as a lone bartender, setting up for the start of business. The raised, open stage is surrounded by the audience in this 360 º specially configured space. The other dancers, wearing the distinctive school uniforms, gradually approach and provide sound effects to accompany Hashizume’s stylized pantomime.

Condors in “Cigarettes and Alcohol.” Photograph by HARU

The Japanese onomatopoeia phrases perfectly match Hashizume’s earnest, mimed preparations (for Condors’ fans, it's an inside joke as Hashizume owns a bar in the famous Golden Gai district of Shinjuku), the gari-gari of cracking ice cubes or the kotsu-kotsu of wiping the counter.

The lights flicker and Hashizume stumbles, the voices perfectly timed to mimic the seismic interruption of a small tremor, not an unusual occurrence in earthquake-prone Japan. As the “tremor” passes and the lights come on, another dancer leaps onstage suddenly to contort his body in a shoulder stand—as Hashizume approaches with a plunger to “clean” him as a toilet. The audience erupts into laughter and we’re off, soaring in another Condors show.

It’s non-stop, high-octane dance entertainment. Other highlights include a tribute to the Winter Olympics, with choreographed ensembles to evoke ice dancing, curling, and the half-pipe in snowboarding. There’s a series of faux magician sketches, again with Hashizume at the fore, with dancers soliciting audience participation.

Condors in “Cigarettes and Alcohol.” Photograph by HARU

A run of skits reveal humorous recommendations to eliminate food waste. There’s an ongoing riff with a vintage, tabletop radio and a “On Air” DJ booth in the back, where Condors producer and co-founder Yasuharu Katsuyama keeps up a lively commentary after reading aloud the audience-provided poetry between sets.

The various sketches are constantly interwoven with Condors-style dance ensembles—a rowdy mix of street dancing, flips and handstands, freestyle leaps and turns. Kondo usually takes center stage for the dance, but a few sets also showcase the powerful athleticism of the younger dancers. Dance and comedy sometimes collide, as when a sketch about competing politicians—who enter the audience to shake as many hands as possible—is turned into a surprisingly graceful ballroom dance-off in drag, once the dancers return to the stage for a humorous quick-change of costume.

Condors productions traditionally take the name of iconic rock songs—“Cigarettes and Alcohol” to honor Oasis, and their next performance will be “I Want to Hold Your Hand” after the famous Beatles’ hit. It’s all part of their nostalgic appeal and schoolboy humor. Whatever it is, it works. Despite most of the performers obviously entering their 50th decade, the stage still hummed with teenage spirit. In their thirty years, Condors have performed in over 30 countries. Don’t miss them if they fly nearby.

Kris Kosaka

Kris Kosaka is a writer and educator based in Kamakura, Japan. A lifelong ballet fan and studio rat in her youth, she's been contributing to the Japan Times since 2009. She writes across culture, but especially in dance, opera and literature.

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