White goat and black goat: If not a will, if not a condolence message is a dance performance project by dancer/choreographer Setsuko Yamada and up-and-coming young director/choreographer/dancer Midori Kurata. Yamada studied improvised Butoh under Akira Kasai, developed a unique world of dance centering on solo dance after she became independent, and has become a pioneer of contemporary dance. Kurata meanwhile continually creates works that explore the possibilities of dance through confronting herself and others in each work, and using the structure of the stage to present the phenomena resulting from such confrontation as fiction. Fifteen years previously the two encountered each other as teacher and student, and currently create works that ostensibly go in different directions. This project is a product of the long 15-year process of dialogue between two people involved in dance and stage work who reexamined their mutual differences and empathy, and fruitfully channeled them into a dance work.

Direction, Dance: Setsuko Yamada, Midori Kurata
Stage Manager: Natsumi Hasushi
Lighting: Asako Miura
Sound: Mitsunori Miyata
Video: Kohei Kitagawa
Production Coordinators: Maki Miyakubo, Yoshimi Toyoyama
Design: Satoshi Kodama