Dance: Journey Without Maps

(2 of 2)

With the grace of history and the kindness of time and continued growth, Sankai Juku's unique voice may come to seem like greatness. It is a voice without words, like one of the silent sounds the dancers often mouth, their faces contorted like ancient tribal masks. Program notes attempting to describe segments of each of the two 90-minute pieces (such as "ripple of last breath" or "the vanity of nature") may be meant as signposts to a wondering, wandering audience, but no maps are really necessary for this journey.

Verbalized ideas only encumber these primal parables. The singular glory of Sankai Juku is that it achieves almost pure metaphor. It is not like anything else.

Rather, it becomes the thing that all else is like.

—By Jay Cocks