A national dance group will leap to the stage with two culturally-inspired dance presentations.

The Repertory Dance Theatre (RDT) will return to the Palouse this week to give a presentation and exhibition about Asian-American dance and culture.   

The Palouse Asian American Association will host the event with the theatre on Thursday focusing on Japanese-American choreographer Michio Ito and his work.

Guests are welcome to participate in a potluck with the association prior to the talk at 6 p.m., and the event will start at 7 p.m. at the 1912 Center in Moscow.

The dance group will also perform another show, “A Global Tapestry of Dance,” Saturday at the Jones Theater at the WSU campus.

“Part of our goal is to present programs of interest about Asians and Asian Americans,” said Joann Muneta, secretary of the Palouse Asian American Association.

Anyone who is interested in Asian culture or dance will enjoy the Thursday event, she said.

The lecture demonstration portion will include a talk about Ito’s work and life, and showcase performances of some of his work and of others from the time period, said Linda C. Smith, the executive artistic director and one of the founding members for RDT.

Ito, a Japanese-American, lived in America after studying dance in Europe, Smith said.  But after the WWII bombings, he was deported, she said.

“His name was kind of erased from the history books,” Smith said.

The event on Saturday at Jones Theatre will feature the work of many other choreographers, including Ito, she said. In total, the dance group will perform nine pieces.

Abby Glanville, executive director of the Festival Dance and Performing Arts Association, said the Saturday performance is a great way for people to become more familiar with modern dance.

“It’s something not a lot of people are exposed to,” she said. “Modern dance is newer and more unique.”

Smith said the diversity of movement in the dances is apparent in the program.

The opening piece, “Desert Sea” by Molissa Fenley was commissioned by RDT and was inspired by Native American culture and geography in Utah, where the dance theatre is from, Smith said.

The second piece, “By the Snake,” has choreography by Noa Zuk and music by Ohad Fishof, two Israeli artists.

“They wanted to create a new kind of social dance,” she said.

This piece is very unusual and takes on a familiar territory in a new way by showing a new interpretation of more traditional forms of couple dancing, she said.

The performance will also include five selected works choreographed or inspired by Ito.

The ending piece “Bolero,” by Joanie Shapiro, is a strong and energetic piece that shows a physical struggle, Smith said. It is very representative of today’s culture; the women lift the men and the men lift the women during the piece, she said.

“We usually have standing ovations at the end,” she said.

The pieces of dance in the performance cover a broad spectrum of backgrounds and style types.

RDT, which is in its 49th year, acts as a museum by preserving important works in the world of dance in addition to performing newer pieces, Glanville said.

“They’re actually a professional modern dance company, but they are also a museum,” Glanville said.

The company’s dance library represents more than 100 years of modern dance, Smith said.

“We were the first successful modern dance repertory company in the country,” she said.

The company acquires previously-created works and also commissions pieces, she said, which allows the dance theatre to have not only new pieces of their own, but also to showcase important pieces in modern dance history.

Glanville, who is new to the Palouse, said she could already see how vibrant the cities of Moscow and Pullman are.

“It’s pretty clear that arts are important,” she said. She said this performance is continuing the mission of making the arts more accessible.