STAGE TUBE: BAM Previews Japanese Dance Troupe Sankai Juku's UMUSUNA: MEMORIES BEFORE HISTORY

The Japanese dance troupe Sankai Juku returns to BAM in choreographer Ushio Amagatsu's UMUSUNA: MEMORIES BEFORE HISTORY, a visually unique piece meant to evoke the essence of duality and unity encapsulated in the Japanese characters for "birth" and "earth" that combine to form the work's title.

On a stage dusted with sand, androgynous talc-covered bodies-with heads shaved and corsets cinched-trace graceful arcs through the grains, inscribing time. They are Sankai Juku, the incomparable Japanese dance troupe, who return to BAM for the first time in almost a decade. Typifying the Butoh tradition, which was born from the ashes of Hiroshima, Umusuna: Memories Before History probes the ravages of history to recover our original bond with the four elements. Gnarled hands, craned necks, and gaping mouths fold into a meditative procession of centered, impeccably controlled movement from which an austere beauty emerges.