Do you cake yourself in white? "Yes, well, occasionally. I guess it's pretty much a stereotype of any Butoh-inspired dance."

What is that white stuff, anyway? "It's definitely a beautiful color--it makes things a little less human. It's supposed to detract attention from the person and make things a little less everyday."

But what is the stuff itself? Makeup? "Yeah, it's just pancake makeup. You get a wet sponge and slather it on, then it dries and looks like a fine powder."

You wear feathers in this piece--how do feathers fit in? "Feathers are pretty beautiful--transcendently so--but they can be kind of awkward and silly at the same time. Plus, I can't wait for the opportunity to bring a bunch of feathers into a small room and let them fly around, just because it's not usually allowed. If anybody has an aversion to feathers, it might not be the best place for them to be."

Is this Butoh burlesque? "Probably not. It's Butoh-inspired, so I'm going to be exploring the parts of moving that aren't part of the everyday world."

What parts of moving aren't part of the everyday world? "The goal is to incorporate emotions and intuitions and the body and then fuse them all into this big chemical reaction. I try not to leave anything out, but to come up with something new and a little bit odd and a little bit touching and inspirational. I like to take a situation that would be completely frightening and challenging, that would put you in a place of sheer panic, and put myself there and see what happens."

What's a situation that would frighten you? "I usually don't have a clear picture in mind--it's everything combined into one feeling."

So it's like the anxiety of a first date without going on the actual date. "It would be more like if you stepped out of your house on a first date and fell through a hole in the floor."