JAPANESE TROUPE'S DREAMLIKE 'SHIP' SAILING THIS WEEKEND.

Byline: Vicki Smith Paluch Correspondent

With a few performers on a simple, dark stage that is dominated by a large mast, Japan's evocative performance art troupe Pappa Tarahumara will take Southland audiences on a surrealistic voyage when it presents the West Coast premiere of ``Ship in a View'' at UCLA's Royce Hall today.

``Ship in a View'' is a 100-minute production without intermission. The voyage begins as a ship crosses the stage slowly. A pole is standing in the middle of the stage. It looks both like a mast of a ship and a flagpole on a school playground. A voice resonates in the air. People wear black and white costumes. Their restrained movements evolve into intense dance, and the stage is transformed into a place filled with voices and light.

As with any dream, it's best not to try to find literal understanding of the images and movement in ``Ship in a View,'' according to director Hiroshi Koike, who founded Pappa Tarahumara in 1982.

``Meaning is not so important. I think (all or most members of the audience) can feel something strong. If (the) audience can feel something, they can get the meaning in the future. I don't think it's important whether they can get the meaning at the same time,'' Koike explained.

Koike named the troupe after Tarahumara Indians in Northern Mexico. ``I first knew of the tribe from a book by Antonin Artaud (the French philosopher, actor and poet who was a member of the surrealist movement),'' Koike said. ``I was fascinated by their customs and ideas. I thought their customs had some key to solve the question: what the modern age was. On the other hand, I wanted to (erase) any kind of boundaries.''

``Pappa,'' he said, ``doesn't have any meaning. Just sound.''

In ``Ship in a View'' Koike uses textless sound - wailing, howling, singing - to evoke memories and emotions but no literal meaning.

Having created 43 productions for Pappa Tarahumara, Koike created a world filled with the images of his childhood in a seaside town in ``Ship in a View,'' which he first produced in 1997.

Using his personal palette of memories, Koike paints a dreamscape that is universal in its reach. He shares flashes of his childhood - the seaside town, a schoolyard, the distant ship, a woman eating an apple, a vendor singing, a man dancing with a doll and a man sitting off in the distance watching everything.

``Right before 'Ship in a View,' I made 20 productions by using a lot of various images,'' he said. ``Maybe I was tired that time, so I wanted to gaze at my background one more time. Then I was willing to draw the people around me in my childhood days.''

Pappa Tarahumara is a highly theatrical Japanese ensemble that gives equal importance to dance, opera, set design, music and lighting to create an emotional landscape. The troupe's work is characterized by its Asian sense of time and motion and spirituality.

``The stage is not just space. The stage has something special as the stage from the beginning. When I make a new production, I always talk with the space where I will present,'' he said. ``The performing arts were born as the offering to the god and the universe.''

SHIP IN A VIEW

Who: Pappa Tarahumara

Where: Royce Hall on the UCLA campus in Westwood.

When: 8 p.m. today and Saturday.

Tickets: $20 to $42. Call [phone] or www.UCLALive.org.

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In ``Ship in a View,'' director Hiroshi Koike uses wailing, howling and singing to evoke memories and emotions.