On a small raised platform, a lone dancer, naked except for his white pants, slowly twists his convoluted body around metal chains suspended from the ceiling. Twelve other dancers, similarly undressed and bald, watch in silence from all angles of the tiny studio, their own bodies stretching and contracting as if taunt strings connect their limbs to those of the lone performer.
"They'll be tumbling down from steps that are 4 meters high", the only man in a T-shirt and trousers explains offhand. "They're breaking down the movements they will make as they fall."
In this dark, modest, underground studio in the student district of Kichijoji, in western Tokyo, the internationally celebrated butoh group Dairakudakan rehearses under their leader for this season, Takuya Muramatsu, whose latest work, "DOBU" (meaning "ditch"), runs March 8-11 at Theater TRAM.