Shigehiro Ide is back on stage with his dance company Idevian Crew after all too long an absence from performing. His comeback in "Which," the piece he choreographed to open the Next Dance Festival at Shinjuku Park Tower Hall Feb. 18, establishes him as the most promising dancer/choreographer on the scene.

The audience reaction to "Which" was so enthusiastic that the Tokyo venue could have easily scheduled extra performances were it not for the other three dance companies taking part in the festival. Ide has shown himself to be endlessly inventive with group choreography on abstract themes, so it was refreshing to have the curtain go up on the opening Japanese funeral scene in "Which." Like many European dance companies, Idevian Crew is becoming increasingly antiglamor, and the costumes of black suits for the men, dresses and kimono for the women, and the occasional school uniform, were uncompromising against the vertical funeral black and white bunting hung on three sides. The stage was covered with tatami, an interesting departure for the 14 or so barefoot dancers that allowed rhythmic patterns for the feet to produce a sibilant accompaniment during silences.

Ide set all this to mamba, sambo, a selection of songs that sounded like Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and a synthesized version of "The Great Gate of Kiev" march from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," among other pieces of music. The contrasting score was illuminated by his clear, vivid movement ideas; hip and groin jerks with deadpan facial expressions, swimming arm patterns as dancers reversed course, flowing hand gestures and simple actions. In one early scene, he provided acute sociological observation in showing how people at a funeral take their emotional cues from the lead mourners. This collective psychological portrait turned into a hilarious scene in which the dancers used sketchy mime gestures to try to persuade another dancer to perform.

One of Ide's great gifts is understanding tension -- how to create it and how to hold it. He makes us wait just over the syncopated timing for the end of a phrase, or anticipate the beginning of a new movement pattern ahead of time. All his dancers embody a kind of musical kinesthetics which can only have evolved through training with him. It's rare enough anywhere, and extremely rare in Japanese dance.

It was great to see the chubby choreographer in a solo, set back in a corner in a red beam of light. With the trousers of his funeral suit too long and the rest of the garment slightly crumpled, he looked an unlikely candidate for most promising choreographer of the year. But movement flowed out of him, deft, economical and precise, and he linked it at the end of his solo with small groups of dancers.

The only trouble with the entire production was that it skirted the surface, emotionally and artistically, providing lots of entertainment and surprises for the audience but neither prodding the issues of grief and loss inherent at a funeral setting nor provoking any confrontation. One of the main reasons for this is that Japanese dance companies may boast, per capita, the best technique in the world considering their semiamateur status, but the choreographers seem to be blind to the possibilities of combining the movements of two or more bodies. This would of course dictate choreography in which the dancers actually touch each other. The ballet pas de deux of the last century is often the only tactile expression on the Japanese modern dance stage, and the unending patterns of unison movement, even when a choreographer is as gifted as Ide, are wearing thin.

The high standard set by Ide took a bit of a dive when Shinonome Butoh group, the next company commissioned by the festival, performed "Hitobire" on Feb. 23. The three women in this group have all studied and performed with Yukio Waguri and his company Kozensha, with Yuko Kawamoto easily the most impressive. Apart from one ethereal sequence in which the dancers proceeded in highly ritualized style in a diagonal across the stage, swathed in veils, "Hitobire," which the dancers translated as "a human presence," was monotonous and at times more representative of a Bangkok floor show than butoh. This was a pity, as the three dancers codirected the piece and collaborated on all the choreography.

The festival promises to pick up with Dance Theatre Ludens in "Be" through Feb. 28, choreographed by Takiko Iwabuchi. Takao Kawaguchi concludes the festival March 3-6 with his new company March 2000. Kawaguchi, a member of the Kyoto-based performance cooperative Dumb Type, is another dancer to watch.