Brave new work still challenges

Choreographer Javier De Frutos

At thirtysomething, Javier De Frutos rocked the contemporary dance world with passionate and frequently naked expositions on anger, sex and pain.

A decade on he has metamorphosed into an acclaimed choreographer whose stunning works challenge the mainstream.

His latest work premieres in New Zealand this month. It is titled Banderillero, from the Spanish bullfight, and set to the rhythms of Chinese percussionist Yim Hok-Man.

But De Frutos sees no cross-cultural divide.

"I never attempt the tourist visit in my works," he says, somewhat scathingly. "There is no Spanish or Chinese colour in the work. I chose the name because I liked the sound of it in my head."

The Royal New Zealand Ballet has two previous De Frutos works in its repertoire: The Celebrated Soubrette, a glitzy and glamorous portrayal of a fading show dancer, recreated from the Rambert Dance original in 2004; and Milagros, a Rite of Spring ritual premiered in 2003 that went on to win international acclaim.

Banderillero will be performed in New Zealand and Australia in the Lion Foundation season of Trinity.

"I like the music a lot; the non-Western rhythms are interesting and familiar to me. Flamenco has similar rhythms to the Chinese," De Frutos says. "So there are connections - but not in the look of the work. I try and break that."

De Frutos has made a stunning career of breaking with the expected or readily accepted.

In the 90s the Venezuelan-born dancer pushed boundaries of the hardcore kind. Angry, violent and naked dance was his forte and his notoriety.

There were earlier explorations of the Rite of Spring in which he used the sacrificial theme to explore solitude, religion, sexuality and guilt, his identity as a gay man, as the agonising outsider.

He was, he has said of that period, "playing with all the possibilities of being myself - extreme love, extreme fear, extreme campness, extreme childishness."

All that culminated in a work titled Grass, made on his own company the Javier De Frutos Dance Company in 1997, and based on the story and music of Pucini's Madam Butterfly.

Grass began as a poignant love story, with a minimalist set, but by the second half of the 90-minute work, its three dancers were naked, flayed by hate, with blood pouring from every orifice.

Born in Caracas, De Frutos was a late starter but had an "early visual education" soaking up the city's great tradition of contemporary culture.

"All these people came there to perform. It wasn't like living in London where it was available all the time. So everybody went, soaked it up," he says.

At 16 he saw dance as a way to express himself, and started classes. At 20 he was accepted as a student at the London Contemporary Dance School.

But on graduation he struck a problem with his Spanish passport and the Thatcher era's tightness with granting work permits. Rep companies could not offer him a position.

He went to New York, continued to study at the Merce Cunningham studio with Barbara Mahler and Sara Rudner, and in 1989 joined the Laura Dean Dancers and Musicians.

Milagros reflects the extent to which Laura Dean has influenced his work, with its focus on ritualised circles, spirals and patterns reminiscent of Russian folk dancing beneath the ominous sense of the inevitable and the undeniable tension of sexual chemistry between the dancers.

Banderillero is "loose" in comparison, the creation process far more organic, and De Frutos is revelling in working with a company familiar with his style, creating alongside him this time, able to "finish his sentences".

The major theme is again sexual chemistry, he says, and the harsh lights of the stage give a sense of ritual as the dancers perform for each other as much as for an audience.

The work has four fronts, he says. The seated audience sometimes views from the back or the sides as the whole rotates, much like computer graphics enable an image to be examined three dimensionally.

"My work has been described as autobiographical," he says. "But I have never consciously put a page of my diary on stage. But everything you do says something about you."

At 37, De Frutos took his lithe, compact and much exposed dancer's body off-stage.

His inspiration as a choreographer comes from a different source.

"Now I am inspired by passing information on to other dancers, seeing them become better dancers," he says.

"Now there is still the fear of failure," he confesses.

That drives him on, and it is not just the fear of the audiences' reaction but the fact that he has to sit through performances of his works night after night.

Then there is the flow of adrenalin at the beginning of the creative process, knowing that five weeks later, something emotional and physical - happens.

De Frutos' work is now in the repertoire of many established dance companies. He created Soubrette and Elsa Canasta for the Rambert Dance Company. Rotterdam Dance Group, Nuremberg Ballet and Gothenburg Ballet have all commissioned works. He made Sour Milk for the mixed-ability company Candoco.

He choreographed the musical Carousel, currently running in the Chichester Festival and will work on Rufus Norris' Cabaret when he returns from New Zealand.De Frutos will become artistic director of the Phoenix Dance Theatre next month.

What: Javier De Frutos' Banderillero, performed as part of the Royal New Zealand Ballet's season of Trinity, with Christopher Hampson's Esquisses and Michael Parmenter's Les Noces

Where and when: ASB Theatre, Aotea Centre, August 2-5

Tickets: Adults $30-$55, from Ticketek