A program dubbed "Retro-spective!" which combines both visions, will be staged today and Saturday at Leeward Community College Theatre; a company of 12 (including Espiritu) will perform.

"I thought it was a good time now for people who have not seen our work to see where we came from, what has influenced us, where we stand today," Espiritu said.

He said there's been a prevailing, mistaken notion that Tau is a hula halau. Not so.

"I'm very quick to say that we don't do hula," he said. "We do the modern idea, the essence of what hula means."

"That number is part of our 'Olomana Suite,' and for 'Retro-spective!' we're adding one more section to it, 'Lullaby,' so it will be a world premiere," he said.

Tau productions have become increasingly heftier, loftier events. Instead of snippets, full-evening works have emerged, such as the recent "Hanau Ka Moku: An Island Is Born," a groundbreaking production blending modern dance with hula kahiko that toured O'ahu, the Big Island and Maui over a three-year period.

That mammoth undertaking, in collaboration with Halau O Kekuhi of Hilo, challenged Espiritu to formulate his next biggie, "Naupaka," which similarly will evolve over three years on as many islands, hopefully in the summer of 2006. And maybe the nation and then the world later.

" 'Naupaka,' a Hawai'i ballet opera, will be as purely Tau as possible," said Espiritu. "It's going to have dance and will be Hawaiian, for the most part; but like opera, it will have a chorus and male voices singing in falsetto, and there will be performers doing pointe work, too, kinda like getting the European-Western feel mixed with the Hawaiian. And even a live orchestra, if possible."

Espiritu teaches dance at Iolani ("I'm the ballet teacher for the after-school program") while mounting shows — a season, really, with three events in as many months — at Leeward.

He's also producing a Japan-Hawai'i youth exchange concert where students from Nagoya and Tokyo will perform in a dance festival.

He's also active as a performer, dancing in Act II of the weekend concerts.

In light of the recent Pilobolus sold-out concerts here, Espiritu said the opening number in "Retro-spective!" — "Vastus Sylva" — was choreographed in 1985 by Austin Hartel, who has Pilobolus ties.

"He was hot from the company and the work is based on the Pilobolus technique; I did it nine years ago, and I hurt myself trying. But I included the piece now to show the lineage, that Pilobolus also is part of our (Tau Dance Theater) history."