Classical Indian dancers move gracefully in a cloud of swirling silk; their hands are bent in elaborate gestures, their feet, dyed bright red with alta, patter across the stage, belled anklets jingling. Accompanying them, drummers with bulging biceps beat out a vigorous rataplan on the Japanese taiko drum.

Dancers first performed the Bharatha Natyam in the temples of Tamil Nadu to please and honour the gods, while Shinto believers played the taiko to summon the kami spirits to the mortal realm.

Chi Udaka, which hits Canberra on its nationwide tour before heading to India in November, may have its roots in these Japanese and Indian styles, but it brings together centuries-old traditions to create something new.

"That's very reflective of us as contemporary Australians," says Ian Cleworth, the show's composer and artistic director of Taikoz, the Sydney-based kumi-daiko taiko ensemble he founded with Riley Lee, the first non-Japanese dai shihan (Grand Master) of the shakuhachi bamboo flute.

"Australians from different cultural backgrounds can come together and do beautiful things in a real spirit of harmony and positivity," Cleworth says.

The show began in 2011 when Anandavalli, founder of the Lingalayam Dance Company, also based in Sydney, approached Taikoz with the idea for the collaboration.

She choreographed the show, while Cleworth worked with Lee, cellist John Napier and Indian vocal soloist Aruna Parthiban to compose the score.

"The music is all original," Cleworth says, "but a lot of it's been based on the south Indian concept of the beat cycles and some of their rhythmic patterns".

At the outset he knew nothing about Indian dance or music, so immersed himself in south Indian classical dance music before he began composing.

"Understanding how the dancers related to rhythm and music was daunting!"

For their part, the dancers were equally daunted by the intensity of the drums. However, Cleworth's combination of the Indian players' basic beat patterns with his own compositional technique and fantasy created a meeting point.

"Even though I was doing these great flights of fantasy, the basic metric styles remained constant, and the dancers could understand that right from the beginning. That's what we based the collaboration on – finding those meeting points and going off in other directions."

Chi Udaka was a critical success when it premiered at the Sydney Festival in 2014, but its creators have now reworked the show.

"We're very proud of the Sydney performance," says Cleworth, "but we felt that the show didn't achieve a coherent whole. It was more item by item. We were determined this time around to have a narrative through the show."

That new narrative celebrates life as experienced in the course of a single day: "We start in the dark of the early morning and we end in the dark of the late night."

Over 75 minutes the show moves from the breaking of dawn in a courtyard to the merging of love-filled hearts at midnight.

Throughout the performance run the themes of earth and water. The show's title refers to both the Japanese word for "earth" (chi) and the Sanskrit word for "water" (udaka). The deep, resonating sound of the taiko drum represents the power of the earth, while the fluid Indian dancers portray Apsaras, celestial water nymphs. The contrast between the elements represents male and female, high energy and soft beauty.

The result, Cleworth says, is a contemporary show that draws on the Indian classical tradition and the Japanese folk tradition.

"It will really surprise and delight the audiences. It's very varied; there are some gorgeous, tender moments that Riley's shakuhachi brings out. We have a cello; beautiful singing; full-on, energetic drumming; and absolutely stunning dancing. I hope people get on our wavelength and let that taiko take over their bones and bodies!"