This series has sought to introduce choreographers who explore new expressions in contemporary dance. The session, the 4th in its series, featured two dance companies who are working on creating a new style of dance that is easily accessible to the public.

Contemporary dance reached new heights in popularity during the 1990s in Japan. Its current trends include freedom from conventional modern dance genres, and explorations of expressions of feeling and body movements in daily life with the frequent use of various media resources. Although we see people enjoying dancing in the streets, theatrical dance performances are often hard for many people to comprehend. The two dance companies we featured are well-known for their ultramodern performance style which assimilates various forms of dancing in the city such as street dancing and disco dancing.

In "With You 3" by Strange Kinoko, the performance started at the Forum�U, a space open to the public, in the 2nd floor basement of the building. Performers were dancing as if they were trying to find the distinction between the movements in daily life and dance while they involved the audience at various places. Gradually, the dancers moved from the informal space of the Forum to the formal space of the stage at the theater. While they were moving, they changed their dancing style from those based on daily movements to more formal dancing for stage performance. This approach successfully created an intimate atmosphere between the performers and the audience.

In "Finks" by Leni-Basso, the performers danced using simple body movements with images projected on a screen as background. Unlike the usual method of dancing for the sake of story-telling, a story was spontaneously created through body movements with images, lighting, and audio effects that corresponded with them.

At the end of the performance, Ito chie of Strange Kinoko lead the "dance after dance," inviting the audience to come up on the stage. Many audience members joined in and they were very excited by the experience of dancing with professionals.