The only international production in the dance section of the continuing Tokyo Festival of Performing Arts turned out to be a heavyweight contender, a collaboration betweentwo of the German dancers and choreographers who, with Pina Bausch, have formed the representative triangle of German dance for the last two to three decades. Susanne Linke and Reinhild Hoffmann debuted "Ueber Kreuz" Nov. 22 at Park Tower Hall in Shinjuku.
Performances have their own way of morphing in the consciousness into a collection of images that shift and gradually sort themselves into a visual memory, strong or fast-fading, with highlights increasingly breaking free from all the padding. But such was the precision and attention to form displayed by Hoffmann and Linke that "Ueber Kreuz" remained a clear constellation of distinct and disparate movement patterns. In a dance world in which productions use movement in competition for attention with text and theatrical elements, Hoffmann and Linke showed us pure, unadulterated movement.
White paper lined the stage, with separate long rectangular screens on wheels providing a changing landscape in the center. It was an austere backdrop, with black fabric screens hiding ceiling lights hitting a white canvas floor. Hoffmann and Linke peopled this monochromatic dream world as dancers in black and shimmering gray costumes, somehow rendered two-dimensional as they cut patterns of diagonal movement dictated by the Laban notation projected on one of the mobile screens.