Time: Oguri is slicing through it; where he has been blurs into where he is, this chameleon-esque creature one wishes to—negative, one must—know, in order to grasp where he might be going next. Decidedly, this insanely gorgeous sleight-of-body feat was on full display when the mover disappeared under the platform. A journey of only a few feet, this felt like a lifetime, as we, a spellbound audience, awaited his return.

And what a return it was: Emerging, as if a spectacular butterfly from a cocoon, this brilliant being, naked save for a flesh-colored thong—think Superman, but in reverse, his secret weapon not a cape and tights, but his skin, glistening, his sinewed back, otherworldly, his limbs a guidepost to knowledge, both arcane and revealing—continued his dance of destiny, a mazurka of majesty, a peerless, if you will, pavane. 

While this writer suspected that Oguri would disrobe—as is his wont—or de-suit, as it were, it remained a shock to the senses to witness his ageless body assaying concentrated and deliberate moves wherein he would be rooted to the ground one moment—with gongs thrumming in the distance, the percussion, in accelerando mode, coursing through the theater—followed by stasis, his veins proving to be a map, yes, to nothing less than existence. 

But what’s a guidebook to reality without a soupçon of humor? In the world of Oguri, it means deploying tiny bourrées before morphing into a scarecrow-ish, rubbery-limbed mass of perfect matter. Accompanied by a train-like whistle and a descending woodwind soundscape, the dancer skittered into what can only be deemed a hip-hop pattern, his silent scream piercing the air.