The Pleiades Dances are a series of solo piano pieces written by contemporary Japanese composer Takashi Yoshimatsu.
They are, in the words of the composer, a newly conceived set of preludes for the modern piano which takes its material from the seven colours of the rainbow, the seven pitches of church modes, and seven metrical units ranging from three to nine beats. Currently ranging from I to IX, these works were written between 1986 and 2001.
Each set of Pleiades Dances contains 7 movements, which are not placed in the order in which they appear in the work for any specific structural or contextual reasons, nor should too much be read into the curious titles [he gave] them. Yoshimatsu, in the preface to these works, encourages free interpretation of these pieces including tempo, dynamics and frequency of repetition, and suggests that It may also be enjoyable to play along with the rhythm by a small percussion instrument like the triangle or the tambourine. Each set, however, seems internally dependent, so that within one set of 7, the order can be freely arranged, but the character of each set differs noticeably between each set.