On the 30-odd subtropical isles of the Ogasawara Island chain that lie sparkling in the South Pacific, some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, there exists a unique music and dance form classified as an Intangible Cultural Property of the capital. Historians have traced the evolution of this performing art to the confluence of unrelated styles from Japan and Micronesia and Palau, 2,000 km south of the Ogasawaras. Termed nan'yo, which in Japanese refers to "influence from the south," these performances emerged in the Ogasawaras in the 1930s, and experts hold them up as evidence of how culture has spread along sea routes between islands through the ages.

The crosspollination of the Ogasawaras is on display this month at the Tokyo Summer Festival 2007, when singers and dancers from the Ogasawaras and Palau showcase these traditional arts under the theme "Towards the Islands — Sounds Across the Sea."

The dance element of the performance, nan'yo odori, can be traced to hula in Hawaii, from where the original people of the Ogasawaras migrated. The first traces of Hawaiian settlers found by anthropologists on the Ogasawaras date to about 1830, and the word Oubeikei, used in Japan in reference to Ogasawarans, backs this up — it means Westerner. Says Masaki Shibuya, a dancer who arrived in the Ogasawaras two decades ago from Tokyo, "Nan'yo dance is strong and rhythmic. The counts (for the steps) are 'than, than, thaka,' and the rhythm goes on in that cycle — which is conveyed to the audience through the stamping feet of the dancer."