Act 1 establishes a distinctive movement vocabulary by the company’s artistic director and executive director, Un Yamada, to physically express the radical piano solos by the virtuoso composer, hailed as one of the greatest pianists of all time. Rachmaninoff’s uneven, stumbling cascades of sound, the unexpected aberrations of jumbled notes are mirrored in Yamada’s choreography and direction. Her dancers jerk, collapse, drop and twist in spastic eruptions. Fluid yet staccato, the choreography captivates and repels with its strange reconfiguration of familiar steps. A cartwheel morphs into a twisted jeté or a slow backbend jerks to a sudden, improbable shoulder stand. 

Solos, duets, and ensemble work are also ingeniously combined as movement sometimes acts as an infection. For example, the ensemble of dancers might suddenly freeze, bringing the focus to a single dancer now commanding the stage for a solo surrounded by a crowd of unmoving bodies. Later, movement suddenly erupts elsewhere, as the soloist collapses. Like the music, with its sudden dart of keys or jumble of notes cutting off to explore a different harmonic variation, movement begins and ends unexpectedly, yet perfectly in tune with the music.