Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Contemporary dance isn’t for everybody. The prospect of, for example, watching someone writhe about on stage screaming something unintelligible is not everyone’s idea of art.

With this in mind, Keisuke Sakurai of stage promoter Precog conceived Azumabashi Dance Crossing, a kind of down-and-dirty, wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am sampling of contemporary dance. Eight groups of dancers have ten minutes each to perform, allowing viewers the chance to evaluate a spectrum of styles without having to commit to a lengthy performance.

“If people feel that contemporary dance is hard to understand, this event is a good introduction,” Precog says in its notes. “Like the latest best hits album of contemporary dance, it introduces you to the essence of avant-garde, cutting-edge expression in a machine-gun assortment of short pieces.”

As the promoter of some of Japan’s most intriguing performing arts groups, Sakurai even goes so far as to suggest that the Japanese scene is more interesting than the West’s. “Japan has no history, education or context for contemporary dance,” he explains. “Without such an environment, dancers just do what they think might qualify as dance. As a result, much of what they do is an imaginative delusion.”

On the program are some of Precog’s most notable performers, including internationally acclaimed theater collective Chelfitsch; dance group Off-Nibroll; fast-emerging dancer Kentaro!!; and a handful of lesser-known groups.

Led by Toshiki Okada, Chelfitsch blends elements of both contemporary theater and dance. The company’s name, says Okada, “represents the baby-like disarticulation of the English word ‘selfish.’ It is meant to evoke the social and cultural characteristics of today’s Japan, not least of Tokyo.”

Off-Nibroll is the side project of multidisciplinary group Nibroll, founded by dancer Mikuni Yanaihara and visual creator Keisuke Takahashi to map out “the relationship between body and image,” with unpredictable but often astounding results.

The wonderfully flexible Kentaro!!, meanwhile, takes the vocabulary of street performance into the rarified contemporary dance sphere. At Azumabashi Dance Crossing, he’ll perform solo as well as with his group Tokyo Electrock Stairs. He is also slated to dance onboard a special suijo aato basu—a boat chartered for the occasion that will ply the waters of the Sumida River near the Asahi Art Square venue.

For those into the eccentric and kitsch aspects of Japanese pop culture, the event will also feature the indescribable “sound sculpture” mechanisms of Muneteru Ujino and the social networking performance art of Sputniko!, who through music, films and electronic devices “explores themes such as trans-humanism, vengeful cyborgs and open-source boyfriends.”

Azumabashi Dance Crossing
Short but sweet contemporary dance primer featuring Chelfitsch, Kentaro!! and others. July 16-18, various times, ¥3,000 (student)/¥3,500 (adv)/¥4,000 (door) w/1d. Tel: Precog 03-3423-8669. www.azumabasgi-dx.net