A Dance Remembered

A lone musician stands at the corner of the darkened stage. His shakuhachi (bamboo flute) echoes, melancholy, as the sound of an ominous wind rises. Shoya Ishibashi, a K-Ballet Tokyo principal dancer, marches into centerstage as the wind shifts into the clatter of a propeller, the hum of an engine. His body becomes a fighter plane: take off, flight maneuvers, a holding pattern—and then the fiery crash of a World War II kamikaze pilot into a roiling red sea.

Performance

K-Ballet Opto: “A Dance Remembered in Tohno” choreographed by Kaiji Moriyama

Place

Tokyo Tatemono Brillia Hall, Toshima Arts and Culture Theatre, Tokyo, December 26, 2025

Words

Kris Kosaka

Shoya Ishibashi and dancers in “A Dance Remembered in Tohno.” Photograph by Hajime Watanabe, courtesy of K-Ballet Opto

It’s a remarkable opening to an enthralling two hours. K-Ballet Opto’s new production, “A Dance Remembered in Tohno,” fuses disparate dance forms, melding history and folk tales in an episodic exploration of life and death.

The pilot’s soul ventures to Tohno, known throughout Japan as the “city of folklore,” located in the Great North of Tohoku, a harsh, unforgiving climate ringed by three mountains. It’s a place where the boundary between life and death remains tenuous, and where the most well-known yokai (supernatural beings) dwell. Guided by Boy K (danced by the 13-year-old kabuki actor, Onoue Maholo), a child spirited away to this liminal realm, Ishibashi as the pilot encounters various fantastical creatures and spirits of the dead as he grapples with guilt, regret, and his longing for the living.

Choreographer Kaiji Moriyama wrote, directed, and dances in the production, piecing together tales from the seminal 1910 collection The Legends of Tono by Kunio Yanagita as well as drawing inspiration from the historical letters of a kamikaze pilot. Moriyama’s choreography entwines modern dance, ballet, and butoh, Japan’s avant garde “dance of darkness.” Moriyama also incorporates elements of kabuki, the most popular Japanese traditional performing art, especially in Onoue’s role.

Shoya Ishibashi and Saya Okubo in “A Dance Remembered in Tohno.” Photograph by Hajime Watanabe, courtesy of K-Ballet Opto

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 principal 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 Onoue and Maro. With clever staging and a dialogue of choreography, Onoue’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. Onoue leads the dancers with a dignity and charisma far beyond his 13 years. It was more than spectacular; it was pure magic.

Onoue Maholo in “A Dance Remembered in Tohno.” Photograph by Hajime Watanabe, courtesy of K-Ballet Opto

The shakuhachi performer, Akikazu Nakamura, composed and arranged the music with additional compositions from Kiyoshi Yoshida and Arvid Olson. Set designs and costumes vividly inform the whole, created by sculptor and textile artist, Takehiko Sanada. Three stone sculptures on stage mimic the topography of Tohno with the three mountain ranges, and the visual impact of the production alone is worth seeing. Timed to honor both the 150th anniversary of folktale collector Yanagita’s birth and the 80th anniversary of the end of the war, it is truly a journey into the cultural heart of Japan.

In the new year, the production travels through the northern regions of Japan, visiting Yamagata, Akita, Aomori and Iwate, where Tohno is located, before ending in Hokkaido. If you’re in Japan, don’t miss this memorable production, a true fusion of superb artistry.

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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