Choreographed and directed by Akaji Maro. A Dairakudakan production. A Vancouver International Dance Festival presentation. At the Vancouver Playhouse on Friday, March 20. No remaining performances

Following Dairakudakan’s Friday performance, dancer-choreographer Akaji Maro came into my bedroom, still wearing butoh whiteface, and began to feed me tasty morsels of chicken karaage.

Then I woke up.

Now I have no idea what my dream meant, and only a rudimentary understanding of what Dairakudakan’s Mushi no Hoshi—Space Insect was all about, but I know that scenes from the Tokyo-based troupe’s latest production are going to stay with me for a long, long time. Images like the opening sequence, “End of Days”, in which the cast’s 22 members walk in a stately circle, stopping every so often for one of them to convulse, open-mouthed, as if hit by a blast of radiation (or perhaps pesticide). Or the subsequent “To the Insect Zone”, in which the troupe’s women, curled up like larvae, are kicked and nudged into symbolic cocoons by the men. Or the 10-part performance’s penultimate act, “Insectmen from the Wasteland”, in which the entire troupe returns, wearing…

Well, we’ll get to what they were wearing in a minute. What’s more important to say right now is that Mushi no Hoshi itself follows a kind of dream logic, occasionally interrupted by quotidian concerns. There is a narrative through-line, but it proceeds fitfully, and the connections between chapters are not necessarily obvious. To further complicate matters, at least one of the characters—Okina, a wandering monk with a bamboo hat and an incongruous purple staff—appears to have strolled into this avant-garde production from a traditional Noh drama. (Okina means “old man” in Japanese, and an okina is one of the Noh genre’s stock figures.)

Beyond that, Mushi no Hoshi’s premise—mankind needs to learn from the insect world if it is to outlive its current profligacy and waste—is intriguing, and its first few scenes were both provocative and visually stunning. The show wasn’t perfect, however. Approximately two-thirds of the way through, following “The Insects and the Girls” (in which Dairakudakan’s women were turned into eight-year-old children through the application of short white dresses, butterfly nets, and an air of puppyish enthusiasm), the action slowed to a crawl. Under Okina’s scrutiny, Maro and a “Sacrificed Girl” performed a series of solos and duets that lacked the vigour of the ensemble pieces; worse yet, they were almost, if not entirely, predictable.

After the brilliance of what had gone before, this was perplexing—but one reason for the prolonged interlude became apparent when the rest of the cast returned, now wearing silver ant masks, matching metallic body paint, and photographs of their human faces affixed to their backs. More stunning images ensued, including a sequence in which the dancers moved in unison while facing the rear of the stage—simultaneously giving the rather disturbing impression of staring down the crowd.

Worth the wait? Probably. And more delicious bafflement arrived during the finale, when pumping house music took over the speakers and everyone on-stage joined in a giant Up with Insect People celebration.

“Better than LSD!” one viewer enthused on his way out of the Playhouse. I don’t know about that, but Mushi no Hoshi was a pretty damn good dream.