Arts preview: Japanese dance troupe enters realm of the senses

An old man lives in an oasis in a desert and, despite having never left it, knows almost everything about the world from conversations he has had with visiting caravans.

This story, which Takayuki Fujimoto first read in the afterword of an anthropology book, lends the title to the Japanese director and lighting designer's latest multimedia production. Node/The Old Man of The Desert is a performance revolving around the four stages of human understanding: data, information, knowledge and wisdom.

"Data is sorted and edited to mean something, and then it's regarded as information," explains Fujimoto, a member of the performance collective Dumb Type since 1987.

"The same data may mean different things according to how you edit it. One must decide what to choose out of the information obtained based on [the person's] experience and will. We must realise that it is important to nurture the ability to do so. A reality may seem to be one thing, but it may also be something else when looked at from a different point of view."

Presented as an allegory of the altered reality where the body meets digital technology, Node/The Old Man of The Desert is choreographed by Tsuyoshi Shirai of AbsT. The work features a small roster of butoh (Japanese traditional dance theatre) and contemporary dancers working with computer and sound programmers.