This new production of Stereo Nero Dance Co. constitutes a journey through Japanese myths and stories, starring outlandish female creatures of captivating beauty and mysterious form. Figments of imagination tightroping between sensuality and terror, but also strange and wonderful supernatural presences - mirages, ghosts, phantoms, wraiths, demons, goddesses, odd animals and spirits of nature, these creatures are at times frightening, at times melancholy and at times comical, yet always paradoxical and exciting, and ushering us into a world where the supernatural is interwoven with the natural landscape and part of the human day-to-day life.

Kwaidan explores the scenic rendering of these forms through a journey that sets out from the Japanese tradition spanning all the way through to the Japanese modern-day capital, Tokyo, a city generally seen by Westerners as strange, unfamiliar, charming, almost utopian. Drawing their inspiration from the myths of Lafcadio Hearn and the ghost stories of Masaki Kobayashi's film Kwaidan, as well as from the Japanese tradition of anime and the young pop scene, Stereo Nero Dance Co. creates a mosaic of vibrant colours, moods and speed alterations, and merges mysticism with the new ideograms of the Japanese metropolis.

SET DESIGN PROCESS​​​​​​​