Shirokuro, which is Japanese for 'white-black', is a creation by the German choreographer Nicole Beutler and the Japanese pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama. Musicality is never far away in Beutler's work, while Mukaiyama's concerts invariably display considerable physicality. It is therefore no surprise that Beutler was looking forward to working with a pianist and that Mukaiyama was happy to continue exploring the medium of dance. At the heart of their collaboration is the Piano Sonata no. 6 by the Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya. Her music is known as uncompromising. Beutler and Mukaiyama transform its musical force into a performance that is intended to make contrasts physically tangible. The lighting designer Jean Kalman lends them his support. 'Shirokuro' is a performance about opposites, about the way they reinforce one another, or even require one another. No hell without heaven, no white without black. Tomoko Mukaiyama creates a musical contrast to Ustvolskaya's music by inserting an interlude based on Schumann's Six Etudes opus 56.