The work features elements from Japanese Kabuki dance tradition, western contemporary dance, music, theater and video. Tyler Tyler continues Yokoshi’s unique collaboration with her revered master teacher of Kabuki Su-odori dance, Masumi Seyama. Performed by a cast of six, Tyler Tyler will feature two American contemporary dancers, one American musician and three Japanese dancers/actors, trained under Ms. Seyama. Original music performed by the composer, Steven Reker, on voice, toy piano and bass guitar (referencing the sound of the Japanese shamisen), is inspired by Japanese folk songs. The music also includes recorded works by Ryuichi Sakamoto, Cat Power, Lou Reed and The Carpenters.

"The sound of the Gion Shoja bells echoes the impermanence of all things;
the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline.
The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night;
the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind."
- From the opening of The Tale of the Heike (translated by Helen Craig McCullough)

Housing for the artists in Tyler Tyler is supported in part by the UMass Hotel at the Campus Center.

NEFA's National Dance Project is generously supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation