'I picked metal because I wanted to challenge myself - and the decision has taught me a lot,' says Egami, who recruited fellow dancers Ye Feifei, Li Jia-bo and Li Lin to perform in his conceptual piece.

'Firstly, I researched the history of metal, when it was discovered and how it's used in our day-to-day life. I came to realise that pretty much everything we can see, that has a shape, has metal in it ... it represents something that stabilises.'

Egami says metal is a complex material: it can attack and protect at the same time, it is a metaphor for both connection and separation. To convey this duality on stage, he selected four music tracks with different tempos to be played simultaneously: the audience will hear one track while watching the three dancers, each moving to music only they can hear via a pair of headphones. But after a certain number of beats, the rhythm of the four tracks - and the dancers' movements - will synchronise for a moment with the music played to the house.

This synchronicity represents 'the metal moment', Egami explains, as it connects everyone before they go their separate ways again. He says the challenge is to have the three dancers start their track at exactly the same time so as to be in sync later.

Egami has always enjoyed a challenge. He choreographed his first solo piece, at 15, to thank classmates who threw him a party to celebrate his admission to the Royal Ballet School in Britain.

'When I was at the ballet school, I took part in a dance competition. While preparing a classical piece was easy, doing a contemporary work you would have to pay a fortune for the [performance] rights,' he says. 'So I thought: why don't I create a piece myself? I find choreographing my own work a fun thing to do; [it's] a challenge.'

In 2001, a year before he joined the Hong Kong Ballet, he was awarded third prize in the Ursula Morton Choreographic Competition at the Royal Ballet School.

The Japanese dancer also finds choreographing therapeutic. He says his previous works, Kag? and Sakula, helped him gain a better understanding of his identity.

'There was this opportunity to make a piece that helped me to re-experience and to look at my experience from the outside, to see what it was ... it was painful at the time. I created something that I didn't want to look back on. I broke it down and restructured it as a piece and that helped me settle my feelings at the time,' Egami says.

Born to a university professor and a homemaker, Egami started learning ballet when he was seven. 'My sister started taking lessons and I went to pick her up a few days a week,' Egami recalls. 'As I was looking through the ballet studios, every time, the distance between myself and those studios got shorter and shorter, and one day I found myself inside one and the ballet teacher asked, 'Do you want to join?' And I said yes. That is how I started.'

He loved the laughter, the dancing 'and the girls' during those early classes, but what truly inspired him was the performance of Tetsuya Kumakawa, the first Asian male principal with the Royal Ballet, in a production of Frederick Ashton's Tales of Beatrix Potter in Oxford when he was 11.

'I really, really enjoyed it,' says Egami, who spent a year in Oxford when his father was a guest lecturer at the university. 'If you bring your kids to an opera house when they are 11, I am sure all of them [will be in awe] because of the theatre, the orchestra, great costumes, the set and visuals ... and I saw a Japanese guy, I thought, OK, if he can do it, I can do it too.'

Today, Egami's talent is on display for the world to see; his previous work for the ballet's choreographic showcase, Mirage, demonstrated how well he understands and works with his dancers.

'I'd rather interact with dancers, so I try to inspire them by providing information that triggers thoughts and movements,' he says.

'I used to prepare the steps before I went into the studio. Then I realised [they] might look good on me but not for the dancers because their muscles and physique are different. I realised if I give the dancers more space, then they look a lot better than I do. If those are their strongest points why not use them to reflect the piece?'

Egami says he will continue to dance as well as choreograph works: 'My body is [connected] closely to my mind. If I stop dancing, I don't think I would be able to carry on as a choreographer. As long as I can use my body, I should keep on dancing ... I love working for other choreographers and getting inspiration from others. There are many great ballets I haven't danced and I'm still capable of dancing, so I want to keep on dancing.

'At the same time, if I have the opportunity to choreograph I'd love to take it. Every day my brain is looking for a creative vision; it's there to be inspired.'

Choreographic Showcase 2011: Inspired by the 5 Elements. Apr 15 and 17, 8pm; also Apr 17, 3pm. Cultural Centre, 10 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, HK$150-HK$350 Urbtix. Inquiries: 2105 9724