PALIKU THEATRE Performers Ben Moffat, top, and Yukie Shiroma founded the Monkey Waterfall Dance Theatre Company.

Tall tales

It's just a coincidence, of course, but in this final weekend of the Year of the Monkey, the Monkey Waterfall Dance Theatre Company is presenting its biggest show in years on the Windward side of the island.

'Monkey Waterfall in Concert' Where: Paliku Theatre, Windward Community College When: 7:30 p.m. tonight and tomorrow Tickets: $15 (discounts available for military, students, children, and seniors 62 and older) Call: 235-7433

"Monkey Waterfall in Concert" will be performed twice at the Windward Community College's Paliku Theatre.

"This will be the first time we're doing our signature piece, 'Monkey and the Waterfall,' in Hawaii since 2001, and the first time in a theater in Hawaii since 1996," said Ben Moffat, co-founder of the acclaimed experimental dance troupe, earlier this week.

The company needs a lot of room to do justice to the piece, he said, and has been looking forward to performing at the spacious theater.

"One of the points of this (show) has been to use Paliku and show off its versatility, and so I think the audience will have a few surprises. It's a series of pieces that tell stories with movement to music -- festive family entertainment," he said, cautioning that some youngsters may be frightened by the large masked figures, so he's recommending the show for ages 8 and older.

Moffat, who stands over 6 feet tall and towers closer to 10 when he straps on his leg stilts and arm extensions, will perform opposite company co-founder Yukie Shiroma in their signature piece.

"It's basically about cycles in human nature and in human society -- oppression, freedom and return to order. At a certain point I throw my arms up in the air, so we usually ask for a ceiling about 14 to 15 feet high," he says, noting the Paliku's high ceilings are perfect for what he and Shiroma have planned.

The weekend program includes a recently written piece commemorating the fast-fading Year of the Monkey (featuring some of Moffat's WCC students), Shiroma's "Blind Visions3," and a piece she created and choreographed for her teacher and mentor, Okinawan dance master Cheryl Yoshie Nakasone.

Kristi Burns, Hester Kamin and the always-popular Cocoa Chandelier (aka Sami L.A. Akuna III) will also be featured in the program.

PALIKU THEATRE Ben Moffat, back, and Yukie Shiroma offer two evenings of experimental dance.

THE TWO-NIGHTER at Paliku caps a busy and productive year for the troupe. Certainly, the highlight was a trip to London in November that included a carefully staged performance of "Monkey and the Waterfall" in the lobby of the Royal National Theatre.

Moffat explains that the piece was created without a name or theme. The title (later adopted as the name of the company) came about through an odd series of coincidences.

"We were getting ready to do a retrospective of Yukie's work in San Francisco, and the producer was demanding a name for the piece, and we didn't have one. One day after rehearsal, she went into a bookstore looking for a book ... and the owner handed her a book he thought she might be interested in. It was about the adventures of the Monkey King, and here Yukie was performing as a monkey (in the piece). Yukie got chills on the back of her neck ... so she bought it and read it."

One of the ways the Monkey King rose to power was by exploring a huge waterfall, and "Yukie was telling her mom about this at dinner, and she said, 'Ben's the waterfall.' ... We thought that was too literal, but it eventually stuck. We thought we could change it later, but we never did."