Review: A Japanese Take on Ravel’s ‘Boléro’ Is a Rare Showcase

For better or worse, Ravel’s “Boléro,” with its churning swell of sound, has stirred the imagination of artists over time, among them the choreographer Maurice Béjart and the ice dancing team of Torvill and Dean. It even found a seductive partner, Bo Derek — along with her cornrows — in the Blake Edwards movie “10.”

With “Nihon Buyo in the 21st Century: From Kabuki Dance to Boléro,” performed at the Japan Society on Wednesday, it has a new rendering. In “Boléro — The Legend of Anchin and Kiyohime,” the director and choreographer Hanayagi Genkuro uses Ravel’s score to retell the folk tale “The Legend of Dojoji.”

In the tale, Kiyohime (the striking Azuma Tokuyo, well known in Kabuki theater as Nakamura Kazutaro), an innkeeper’s daughter, falls in love with Anchin, a monk who promises to return to her but never does. She takes revenge by transforming into a snake and chasing him until he perishes, burning to death as he tries to escape to the bell of the Dojoji temple.

Genkuro coaxes out the sinister notes of the score in a deranged but good way. If you have to watch another dance to “Boléro,” this one, at least, is full of drama, danger and brittle, seething anger. As the music builds so does Kiyohime’s rage, which Tokuyo illuminates with icy solemnity as the fire of passion is turned into despair and, ultimately, revenge.

“Boléro” closes the program, which highlights the art of nihon buyo, a style that translates literally as “Japanese dance.” The training and technique of nihon buyo derives from Kabuki dance; its repertoire can be original or inspired by plays, folklore and stories. Presenting nihon buyo comes with challenges: dancers are in demand; live music is a must; and wigs and costumes can get pricey. In a program note, Yoko Shioya, Japan Society’s artistic director, says that this is only her third time presenting nihon buyo in her two decades in the job.

Along with “Boléro” (2021) was the comical “Toba-e” (1819); in showcasing a pair of dances more than 200 years apart, the program demonstrates the range of Kabuki technique. And because live music is essential in nihon buyo, rounding out the evening were three musical selections: “Matsuri (Festival), “Yugiri, the Courtesan” and “Hana (Flower),” brought to fragrant life by Tosha Suiho’s delicate flute.

But the dances were the anchor. “Toba-e,” a traditional work, features a mouse and a servant, whose ambition is to capture it. Or does the mouse capture him?

This lighthearted piece, which features six musicians, is full of comedy. Subtitles reveal the servant’s fury at the mouse as he stews over his inability to catch it: “You not only gnawed the rice bin, but even bit my lovely wife’s nose.”

As the servant (Hanayagi Motoi) goes on the hunt, the mouse (Hanayagi Suzuhiko) switches up the mood: “I have longed to share the pillow with you.”

The mouse is cute — coyly pulling his tail across his face, scurrying to hide behind a column or pawing at the air — but Motoi is next level as he invests his whole being into the role of the servant, employing a potent muscularity with his face, both expressive and somehow like a mask, and his lithe body, anchored by loose limbs. Increasingly intrigued by the mouse, he manages to be spry and grounded as he flitters on the balls of his feet and wavers forward and back His center of gravity seems elusive, more wispy than cemented to the floor, especially as he shifts from despising the mouse to desiring it. But more than that, you sense dance history passing through his body.

Also vivid is the male performer Tokuyo in “Boléro” as Kiyohime. While four ensemble dancers surround Tokuyo with fans — sometimes holding them horizontally flat with prayer-like hands or opening them as they swirl around Kiyohime’s body like waves — Tokuyo is more spectral than human. Apart from his precise, methodical movement, it is his stillness that carries an unsettling force. The snake is growing from within.

The dancers take turns portraying the monk Anchin, and in the final moments one steps away from the others to hold a quivering fan overhead. The stage is suddenly bathed in red; he is consumed by fire as ash rains down. Kiyohime, rooted and fierce, stands her ground as a bell sounds, washing away the Ravel and making room for a subtler sensation: This is one eerie “Boléro.”

Nihon Buyo in the 21st Century: From Kabuki Dance to Boléro

Through Friday at Japan Society; japansociety.org.