One evening in late May, a cozy rehearsal room in Yokohama was more like a drill hall as Mikuni Yanaihara called for another run through a dance scene in her latest play, "Gonin Shimai" ("Five Sisters").

As a choreographer and dancer, 38-year-old Yanaihara first came to attention internationally with Nibroll, the artistic collective she founded in 1997, at the prestigious Avignon Festival in the South of France. Since then, Nibroll has been just about the hottest Japanese contemporary dance ticket around, while Yanaihara has branched out into theater as a writer and director.

Hopefully Yanaihara has finally managed to get her cast of actors to perform to her satisfaction, as she is now staging "Gonin Shimai" — her fourth original play — at Kichijoji Theater in western Tokyo. The play depicts a few routine days in the lives of five distinctly different sisters, weaving together comical, short dance scenes with everyday conversations about hopes, dreams and complaints about their humdrum daily routines.