The thing about missing planes is that you encounter the full gamut of customer service responses. It's not a rationalized market.

1) The cheery, Texan stewardesses on our three-hour delayed flight to Chicago, grin and say "Think positive." And I have this great feeling... "you're going to make that flight!" And "What is modern dance? That sounds so neat."

2) The American Airlines telephone operator, reached on Christy's cell phone as we agonizingly sit on the tarmac in Chicago waiting for a gate, offers a flight to Tokyo three days from now, refuses to connect her with a manager, yells, then hangs up on her.

3) The harried check-in clerk who, informed by me that there was another Tokyo flight leaving in ten minutes, first denies its existence, then says it's with another airline, then says it's with a partner airline but it's full, then runs after me screaming "Even if it's not full, you'll never make it in time." Think positive.

4) The eternally helpful Trish Kelly who, reached by cell phone, locates 6 beautiful seats from Dallas to Tokyo.

5) The heavenly midwestern Kolleen, mother of three boys, corrals her big-haired friend and they devote 25 solid minutes to confirming seats on a flight tomorrow from Dallas to Tokyo, getting an early flight to Dallas today, offering hotel discounts, rerouting our baggage, and booking all seven of us through with sweet phrases like "Let's try to get you into Dallas early so you can get dinner and some rest." And "Let's make sure you get vegetarian meals." And "Let me talk to my manager about getting you guys seats together." And "If you talk vaguely about needing accommodation to the agents in Dallas, they'll probably give a free hotel and dinner." Like the high-functioning, well-connected grandma of your dreams, she saved us with way more action than talk.

I found the booth promoting tiny Sony gadgets (laptops the size of sandwiches, cameras the size of film canisters), sent a few warning emails to Japan about our 24-hour delay, grabbed a goat cheese and black bean burrito (hell, yeah), and waited at the sunny gate to fly to Dallas.

We will get to Japan, only a day late, in time to salvage our Tokyo performance.

We spent a oddly restorative night at the Holiday Inn Select at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. The hotel was a shocking den of corruption and Soviet-style bureaucracy. The restaurant was closed, BUT the bar served food, BUT children aren't allowed in the bar BUT you can get food to go BUT if you want to eat in the lounge you have to order from the snack bar waitress BUT she has no idea how to take you order BUT she is happily insists on $80 of airline food vouchers for our $57 bill and another $30 cash for tip. The airport shuttle driver tries to coax a bribe out of me for asking for a 7:30 shuttle before confessing that they have to take us whenever we want. A cashier hands Christy far too little change when she buys a Coke, acts like she doesn't understand, then relents and gives her the difference. Still, we manage to get thoroughly rested and set off for Japan feeling dyn-o-mite.

We made them laugh. We pried an astounding number of chuckles and giggles from their stingy mouths. TAKE 3 was the only dance of the evening, entitled "Humor in Dance," that received any laughter from the attentive, quiet-as-a-tomb audience. Our first piece of the evening, SWINGINGING, is a silent women's trio, usually accompanied by a respectable chorus of gigglers. In Tokyo, the sound of a man unwrapping a piece off candy in the ninth minute was the only sound that penetrated the black, black silence. The showcase was intended, in part, as a sort of object lesson for Japan audiences: IT'S OK TO LAUGH AT A DANCE PERFORMANCE! Several Japanese friends assured afterwards that the audience members were laughing "in here," as they gestured toward their rib cages.

So after a dreadful dress rehearsal (TAKE 3 was tense and brittle and not at all funny), I was resolved to browbeat the audience into laughing. My opening speech, which had collapsed into a scripted rush in the face of the Japanese translation, was the key. I faced the 200 Japanese rib cages, determined not to give up until they were with me. I looked each one in the eye. I explained that this dance was inspired by a painful relationship with my (fictional) ex girlfriend Kate. At the mention of the name "Kate," I had them. They laughed, they loosened. They were with us. David stepped up and as soon as he turned his head toward the audience, they were chuckling away.

The evening concluded with a 30-minute dance by a Costa Rican company, distinguished by being perhaps the least funny dance I have ever seen. Long, slow posture changes by a duet seated in wooden chairs (chair dances are a universal language), accompanied by booming, pompous music, with long blackouts so they could move the chairs to a new part of the stage. An onstage costume change provided the obligatory almost-nudity (upstage, dimly lit), scant relief from this choreographic roofie.

Like the anti-drug articles that inadvertently teach the reader how to crush up and snort oxycontin, "Humor in Dance" seemed to convince its audience that supposedly funny dance is best met by funereal quiet. If you must laugh, do it "in here."

Sato-san (head of Japan Contemporary Dance Network, our sponsor in Japan, and and a real cutie, with a boyish grin and sparkly eyes) professed himself "very happy" with our performance, the Japanese equivalent of rolling on the floor and barking with glee.

A side note: Japanese dance lighting differs from American lighting in several key ways. Things tend to be lit more starkly, with sharply outlined boxes of light on the floor. Where in America, we shape the body with a lot of side light, in Japan they shape the space with crisp corridors and down spots. There is less varied use of color. No stage manager calls the cues, the board operator just sort of learns the piece and does it on the fly, making the dress rehearsal rough, but the performance great. And they have these incredibly long telescoping aluminum poles so they can adjust lights that are hanging up high without climbing a ladder or a genie lift. They extend these massive poles, which bend under their own weight, and delicately change a shutter cut or an angle 30 feet overhead. It's like cleaning someone's ear with a 30-foot Qtip: impressive, but of dubious necessity.

After the performance, we had a celebratory dinner at a restaurant, small pre-ordered dishes crowding the table as we drank beer and chatted with the two Russian dancers whose dance had made us laugh quite a lot.

This morning we packed up and sent six of our suitcases ahead to Kyoto. Here's the story: I packed terribly. I didn't start until midnight (before leaving for the airport at 5:00 am). So I packed two big rolling suitcases, but they're not really that full, and I could have simplified it. And one of the rolling suitcases has a broken handle, so rolling it is like herding a large autistic dog. The Japanese were quite visibly horrified by the quantity of luggage we arrived with, so I burn with shame every time me and my autistic dog crash and bumble in view of our hosts. They convinced us, quite reasonably, to send most of our luggage ahead to Kyoto. The tragic and telling fact is that the six of us can't manage our own luggage without help. With the two kids to manage, there just aren't enough free hands to carry our staggering TEN suitcases and SIX smaller bags. We arrive like entitled 19th-century imperialists, waiting for Sherpa porters to take up our trunks filled with oyster forks and backgammon tables.

So this morning, Marie Takamoto, who seems to run the city of Tokyo single-handedly, came and helped us ship out our luggage (one weighed in over 25 kilos, and had to be lightened to avoid the Slipped Disc Fee). Then we set off awkwardly for our Video Presentation at the Tokyo Performing Arts Market, Japan's big presenter conference. Unfortunately, we arrived ten minutes late. But more unfortunately, there was no one there to attend the presentation. So the three companies - Headlong, the Russians, and the Costa Ricans -- sat as the Japanese proceeded to feel absolutely awful around us. The sense that this was a loss of face - a nightmare for the Japanese -- meant they all completely shut down emotionally and administratively. As our lovely and amazing interpreter Mineko said, we should have photographed each face as they entered the empty conference room. The complete collapse of everything they believe in, the shame, the unbelievable discomfort. No one could stay in the room, it was just too awful, so it remained literally empty, a cavernous embarrassment shrine. Various functionaries opened the door, crossed the threshold, then turned and fled as if they had just walked in on someone masturbating. Bill Bissell arrived, disappointed that the presentation was (seemingly) canceled. Finally two more attendees arrive (perhaps to attend the next presentation, but no matter), and at 10:25 we were hustled into the conference room and the Russians began by playing a relentless 20-minute tape of a butoh-like solo, the dancer reciting Shakespeare sonnets in Russian as she tossed an inflatable sex doll in the air. He fast-forwarded with great purpose, gravely announcing "Next section" as the tape showed a scene indistinguishable from the last. There remained about 15 minutes for the last two groups, and we happily let go of our prepared presentation: a brief company intro, some talk about BRITNEY'S INFERNO, a video clip, and an announcement of our Arrow collaboration and Hotel Pool. We just squeaked in under the ironclad 11:00 deadline, stepping out in the hall to stand around like awkward wallflowers, hoping a presenter will ask us to dance. They never do.

It seems we are forever destined to become enmeshed in the Japanese tangle of shame, disapproval, loss of face, and poor planning. We are constantly having a high-status Japanese lay out a series of problems and say "Please, discussion." This usually involves sitting around a low table late at night wandering through tatamae (official stated position) in a vain search for honne (actual opinion). Our decision not to stay at the unheated hostel we were booked into is now legend in Kyoto. Just this morning I met a dancer from Condors (a Tokyo company famous for being big, loud, and entertaining) who had been in town for less than 24 hours, and had already had more than one conversation about Americajin departure from Air Kyoto hostel.

We fled to the magical serenity of Yoshimizu, a ryokan (traditional inn) at the top of Murayama Park. It is one of the most sensual, lovely places I have ever slept: tatami mat rooms, sliding screens, low tables, two beautiful baths. David and I stayed here last time we were in Kyoto and it made a huge impression on us. Spending two days here with Nichole and Christy was delightful. The nighttime walk up through the park is magical.

So Ritsuko-san from the Japan Contemporary Dance Network (our hosts) made a blizzard of cell phone calls and we found two singles at a sort of business hotel/apartment place, and a sort of two-bedroom (one real bedroom, one small changing room) apartment over Nishikidori, a market street much like the Italian Market in Philadelphia. After some elaborate "Please, discussion" among Headlong, we are all getting situated.

I am now a real resident of Kyoto. I have an apartment. I have a Japanese cell phone (the first cell phone of my life). I have a bike with a basket. AND I HAVE GODDAMNED SLIPPERS THAT FIT ME! Thanks to a diverting detour to the 100-yen store (at 115 yen to the dollar, it's cheaper than the Dollar Store), I got myself a pair of black stretchy-terry slippers for less than a buck. Things in Japan, often more expensive than USA (we paid 16 bucks to copy two keys), are occasionally much cheaper.

Christy and I had a hilarious trip to the supermarket that included: