Dance series will put a spring in your step

The National Theater creative team has put together an impressive package for this year's Spring Dance series: a mix of international and local companies, big and small, well-known names and new ones, with a very Gallic flavor.

The team chose to make a bold statement by opening the series tonight with the latest production by the Montreal-based Compagnie Marie Chouinard, Orpheus and Eurydice. The piece had its world premiere at the Equilibrio festival in Rome on Feb. 6 and the company has arrived straight from an engagement at the Hong Kong Arts Festival last weekend.

The company stunned Taipei audiences at the National Theater two years ago with Chouinard's bODY_rEMIX/gOLDBERG_Variations, which explored the human body and its limitations with an intriguing mix of crutches, harnesses, bars and all sorts of appendages.

As they were with that production, the local press appears preoccupied by the amount of female nudity in Orpheus and Eurydice. Granted, both the men and the women of the company are topless throughout the performance, and the women are usually wearing more around their ankles and heads - in the form of fur cuffs and hats - than anywhere else, but Chouinard has repeatedly said that she sees the nude body as a vehicle for art rather than a source of titillation.

The 53-year old Quebecer has a long history of provocative work, and the two-act Orpheus and Eurydice looks set to be no different. Inspired by Beethoven's Ode to Joy (the original title of the dance was Ode to Joy L.I.V.E.) Chouinard uses the mythology of the classic Greek tale of love and passion to weave a story about what she calls the birth of language and the link between language and the body.

This is definitely not a production for children. In addition to nudity, there is a lot of simulated sex in the second half, which reportedly prompted some in the Hong Kong audiences to leave early.

Youngsters, however, will certainly enjoy the second show in the spring series. Next Thursday, one of the top ballet companies in the world, the Lyon Opera Ballet, opens a four-performance run of their most popular production, Maguy Marin's Cendrillon.

The celebrated French choreographer has spliced and rearranged Sergei Prokofiev's wonderful score with the sounds of babies to create a background for her retelling of the Cinderella story, set in a fabulous Toyland designed by Montserrat Casanova. The dancers all wear full head masks that turn them into chubby-cheeked, blank-faced dolls, the better to project an image of a lost childhood.

The masks, by Monique Luyton, along with Casanova's set and costumes, create a rich fantasy world that perfectly matches Marin's imaginative choreography. Several elements of the fairytale have been updated: Cinderella has a mini pink convertible instead of a pumpkin coach, her fairy godmother appears to be a robot with a neon wand, the ballroom scene is filled with children's games instead of gowned women, and the prince embarks on a world tour, accompanied, of course, by his dogs and cats, to find the foot that will fit his beloved's slipper.

The dancers' movements and actions are often childish and awkward, but Marin never loses sight of the love story at the heart of the Cinderella tale.

After the Lyon troupe heads home, the spring dance series is interrupted by a six-week break before coming back with a double-bill. Taiwan's famed Neo-Classic Dance Company (新古典舞團) will be in the main theater from May 16 to May 18 with 1957A.D., and the French/Taiwanese duet Double C will perform Reflex in the Experimental Theater.