This year's Tokyo International Festival of Performing Arts, ongoing through Oct. 31, is a scaled-down version of previous festivals, with only six official participants and few of international interest. While this shifts the onus to domestic dance companies such as Min Tanaka and Kenshi Nomi, expectations of trail-blazing productions on the home front have so far been disappointing, with the partial exception of Kim Itoh's "On the Map" at Park Tower Hall in Shinjuku, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.

The mixed blessing was due to Itoh's mix of the fine dancers in his company the Glorious Future, with almost 20 workshop participants. Many of these new dancers did well, especially in their underwear in the early pieces, but the challenge of creating dance for so many strained Itoh's refined choreographic integrity.

Everything started out well in the first half of "On the Map" as spectators entered a hall stripped bare of its usual appointments and transformed into a set of cages and semi-obscured boxes hiding dancers, through which the audience strolled at leisure during the opening scene. This mis-en-scene of six cages, grilles, mirrored labyrinths and glass frames, divided by six dancers on six plinths down the middle of the hall, bore the Itoh hallmark of audience involvement -- this time clearly as voyeurs.

We peered at a couple closely twined in a 2-meter-high steel box peppered with tiny holes, watched a fake jousting match in a miniature sports arena and progressed through a small avenue of high walls made of mirrored Perspex, dark and slightly thrilling.

One of the most interesting mini-stages was a dinner setting with dancers comatose across the table set with pa^te, fruit and vegetables. This developed into a hilarious mimed sequence of dancers "talking" to fruit, wrestling for scraps with a member of the audience, who may have been a plant, he looked so composed, balancing games and split-second physical jokes aping restaurant behavior. Another was a cube lit from inside to produce an opaque light against which the dancers' bodies appeared as silhouettes.

But this section alone was so rich in imagery, ironic takes on social behavior and sheer theatricality that when all the mesh and Perspex boxes ascended to the ceiling slowly and the dancers dived into the remaining cage of costumes to get dressed, it seemed that the potential of this opening piece was barely realized. It has enough possibilities to be developed into a major dance piece.

It segued into a short filmed section of Itoh in a bath room, balancing on the wash basins and skirting around the walls in frieze-framed poses like ancient Sumerian or Egyptian paintings. It was only when he started hammering outside the doors of the hall that most spectators realized the section was filmed live, and he burst into the performance space with his customary energy, cavorting among the dancers lying spread-eagled on the floor.

But for all Itoh's larger-than-life stage personality and intuitive sense of movement, this was when inspiration seemed to splutter slowly out. All the fine choreography, the contact improvisation and slow-movement exploration of space may well have evolved out of disciplined workshop exercises and as such were quite satisfying, but the contrast with the first half of a more professional approach to performance was absolute. There was a lot of scatter-brained running around in all directions, tapping into a more abandoned energy, as the dancers blitzed around the hall in groups and patterns. After the opening scene, we were expecting to be astonished, not placated.

The festival continues with the Dance Selection of 12 dancers, some established choreographers such as Ryohei Kondo and Kinya Tsuruyama, and the new company Ginko comprising dancers over 60 years of age (who will collaborate with the Nederlands Danse Teater in Europe next year), Oct. 25-29 at the new Oribe Hall in Roppongi.

Other performances to watch out for are the experimental Sascha Walts and company from Berlin Oct. 28-30 at Kameari Lirio Hall and CandoCo Dance Company from Britain, of disabled and nondisabled dancers, Oct. 30-31 at Setagaya Public Theater.