Modern dance from Japan is much among us these days, ubiquitous and mysterious. One can try to understand it historically: how various more or less Western, more or less tradition-based dancers first made their marks in Europe in the 1920's; how German modern dance (for various not entirely savory reasons) was a big influence in the 20's and 30's; how Butoh, so clearly reflecting postwar and postnuclear trauma, has permeated the world; how American modern and postmodern dance have been the biggest outside influences in recent decades; and how the Japan Society in particular has served as an invaluable showcase for new Japanese dance in New York.

Or one can tiptoe into cultural stereotypes. The Japanese have always had an extraordinary ability to adapt foreign ideas and make them their own. They began with China 1,000 years ago and continued with the West after 1853. But through it all, something specifically Japanese remained.

For me, Japan is the most seductively alien of all foreign high cultures. There is something about its mixture of samurai masculinity and geisha docility, about the Ginza and punks and neon lights, about the controlled violence of Yukio Mishima's novels and the controlled Impressionism of Toru Takemitsu's music.

But that's a dangerous path to tread. Images of the German character propagated in holdovers from World War II propaganda argued that something buried deep in the German soul led inexorably to Nazism. Never mind that this was a classic case of working backward along the causational chain, and that maybe Hitler was not the only possible destiny of German history and culture.

Similar stereotypes abounded in anti-Japanese propaganda: the "Chrysanthemum and the Sword" syndrome, one might call it, to cite a book by Ruth Benedict (1946) that argued for an inherent tension between aesthetics and bellicosity in the Japanese character. In San Francisco in the late 1940's, there were still lingering fears of Japanese attacks and lingering hostilities based on cartoon Japanese distortions.

But maybe the best way to approach Japanese dance is neither historically nor stereotypically, but experientially. There are plenty of opportunities to see new Japanese dance now and to come to one's own conclusions as to what it all means.

Tonight and tomorrow, for instance, the Japan Society is presenting its ninth annual Japanese Contemporary Dance Showcase, with three United States debuts and two premieres. Not having yet seen these particular dancers, I can't speak to their quality. But I can recall and describe the varied Japanese dance I encountered last year. Almost all of it was engrossing.

Perhaps the two examples most striking in their Japaneseness were the Project Fukurow, seen last summer at Jacob's Pillow, and Kakuya Ohashi and Dancers at the Kitchen in September. Project Fukurow was notable for its diabolical puppets and machines, especially three miniature radio-controlled robots with monster jaws, tanklike bodies and wriggling, scythelike centipede legs. Designed by Fukurow Ishikawa, the company's director, these were ostensibly benign - or "not evil," as he called them. They looked evil to me, and the whole scenario of a protagonist helplessly under siege from the dark side of his own subconscious was pretty scary.

Mr. Ohashi's "dancers" consisted of himself and a bedraggled young woman named MiuMiu; live electric guitar sounds were provided by a young man named Skank. Supposedly reflecting the alienation of Tokyo today, their piece evoked anomie, isolation, the humiliation of women, the fixations of men. It was strange, off-putting and compelling.

Mr. Ohashi appeared on a double bill with the American choreographer Beth Gill; the program was organized by Yasuko Yokoshi, who seems a prime example of the lure of postmodernism and New York for Japanese choreographers today. Ms. Yokoshi will have her own program March 23 to 26 at Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church.

Eiko and Koma are quintessentially Japanese, and also longtime New York residents. Late last summer they participated in a quintuple bill of choreographers throwing dances together on short notice at the old Tobacco Warehouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn. They represent the always fascinating tension within Westernized Japanese artists as to how to come to terms with Japan's rich artistic tradition; the same tensions are faced by young Japanese composers and painters. Eiko and Koma's stock in trade is extreme slow motion, the grotesqueries of Butoh stretched to infinity, anguished and calm.

The other Japanese choreographers whose work I saw last year were all at the Japan Society. In February came the Condors, all men and all cute. Their routines involve them dressing like the young Beatles (onstage and in their Richard Lester-like films, shown during their performances) and acting out vaudevillian routines. They are very clever - the Hello Kitty side of the Japanese character - but they could profitably focus a little more on movement, at which they're also very skilled.

A program in May, presented in a series called "Cool Japan" and in conjunction with Takashi Murakami's brilliantly creepy "Little Boy" exhibition, consisted of three short performances, as well as a prelude in the lobby. Osamu Jareo and Misako Terada offered an implied narrative reminiscent of the hushed intimacies of recent Asian film. More disturbing (and hence, somehow, more Japanese) were Natsuko Tezuka, who put together a whole performance based on strange bodily tics and quivers and spasms, and Shigemi Kitamura, who deals with isolating body parts and a degree of oddness that builds to a screaming crescendo (yelling, flailing, hitching her skirt over her head).

And then in October came Akemi Takeya, who performed post-Butoh ritual, goofy skits and, at the end, a surreal piece called "Moon Moss Blossom" that involved bronze body makeup, toplessness, a brown hoop skirt and silhouettes. It was eerie and very beautiful.

So does this mean that all Japanese dancers, or the best and most characteristic ones, are rapt and strange, filtering (to Western eyes and ears) the masked impassivity of Noh and the puppetry of Bunraku and the extreme makeup and movements of Kabuki through a Western sensibility? Not exactly.

By now there are Japanese ballet dancers and Japanese tap dancers and Japanese ballroom dancers (see the original and superior 1996 Japanese version of the film "Shall We Dance?"). Perhaps there soon won't be, or there already isn't, a viable category of "Japanese dance" that can be described and categorized; perhaps all that will be left will be globalized individuals.

But as long as Japan retains its unique character, its potent blend of tradition and cutting-edge modernity, its natural beauty and urban flash, its isolation and guarded openness to the world, its computer games and manga and anime and woodcuts and meditational rock gardens, there will always be something recognizable as Japanese dance. And we'll all be better for it.