Think of red and white as it appears in the wardrobe and makeup of Kabuki and Noh traditional theatre. Think of red and white as it appears in onigiri (rice ball), a simple snack with a red plum in its centre. Think of red and white as it appears in Japan's flag, a red ball (sun) on a white field. Red, white, and black resonate from the Japanese core.

Ms. Hirokoma's first piece was set after a rain shower and was danced with a naturalistic feeling and considerable vulnerability. In the second piece, her changing emotions could be seen in the movements of her hand-held fan.

Speaking of fans, the next dancer, Jen-Yi Hum, really knows how to crack a fan in her dances that highlight the dramatic and highly athletic aspects of Chinese classical dance.

The pace slowed down as we listened to Gurpreet Chana, a masterful tabla (hand drum) player whose left hand (bass) and right hand (treble) played independently and in lucid dialogue with each other. Gurpreet next delighted us by playing a percussion instrument that resembled a Chinese wok with a lid. His music fluently mixes the sound of other cultures with his own South Asian roots, and under his fluttering hands, as he took us into Intermission, Gurpreet's melodies had the sound of sweetly chiming steel drums.

For a real change of pace, The Pianoman was thrown up on a big screen. The Pianoman is a short colour animation by Hiroyuki Yabu, a young animator who's pursuing further studies in Vancouver. Yabu's 3-D computer modeling and drawing skills were highly evident, and as we grooved to the hard bop soundtrack, we said we'd look out for his future work.

Next up: Green Tea Dance Collective, a gathering of seven Japanese-born dancers who are 15-year veterans of the Toronto contemporary dance scene. I recognized the names of two of the dancers, Naoko Murakoshi and Keiko Ninomiya. Excellent.

The Green Tea emphasis is on the group. With their backs turned to us, all seven dancers silently gesture 'Kampai' ('cheers' in Japanese) and raise their teacups. Their heads turn right, their right arms hold out cups. They turn clockwise to face us, their faces relaxed. The teacups are inverted and shown to be empty. Now and then a member passed through a human archway to once again rejoin the group. This is danced at a medium tempo.

In this piece, Green Tea embodied the group concept, the collective, the harmonious working together in order to live. They have therefore re-engaged with their traditional Japanese roots while dancing in the open modern dance style of Martha Graham, a style that is the opposite of classical ballet. In the Green Tea troupe, and in the Graham 'style', the dancer's moves are mostly floor-bound, and as the body explores the dancing area with swift and slow paces, unwound circlings and outbursts of running, the gap between dancing and acting is closed. The music for this piece is 'cricket-like', mid-register electronic, and quietly unsettling.

Hanayagi Hirokoma returned with a brief dance in which she alternated between wearing the full-face mask of a woman, and the mask of a bug-eyed and possibly tipsy man. We loved it. No interpretation was needed as she concluded this comical dance. Her pictures spoke volumes.

And now for the headliner, the featured guest artist.