Dancing in sin in a surreal wasteland

By Jane Bowron

Being a choreographer is a mug's game, Michael Parmenter says of his task of turning Royal New Zealand Ballet Company classical dancers into contemporary performers for The Seven Deadly Sins.

"Any other creative artist - a painter, a poet, designer or novelist - can create their own work in their own time, but a choreographer can't because you have to start working at a certain date, do the work from 9 till 5, and have people stand around watching you do it. How contrary is that to the romantic vision of the creative spirit?"

Parmenter felt a lot of pressure in the lead-up to The Seven Sins, which opens tonight at the Aotea Centre, because he had only five weeks to temp-orarily undo the dancers' classical training and to choreograph the dance, which meant staying till late at night in the studio working out steps for the next day.

It's a whole different vocabulary for dancers accustomed to learning standard steps and assembling them into a ballet, Parmenter says.

Classical ballet demands a vertical spine and is very formal compared with the dives, rolls, stabs and the element of touch which Parmenter incorporates.

One morning, when he began with the dancers using massage, he realised that for many of them it was the first time they'd had physical contact with each other.

The dancers seemed to enjoy the process - and Parmenter didn't lose his cool once. "I have a reputation of being a bit of a paddy man, but I didn't even raised my voice."

The Seven Deadly Sins starts and ends with 25 people on stage and principal dancers and soloists are merged in dance socialism. Fittingly, in the programme dancers' names will be listed alpha-betically.

In this interpretation of a classic story, where Anna travels through America in pursuit of money to build a home, the work has been relocated in a surreal post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Passages from a requiem by 17th-century German composer Heinrich Schutz are woven into the main score, by Kurt Weill.

Dancers will wear clothes from Dunedin designer Nicholas Blanchet, with whom Parmenter collaborated in his work The Long Undressing.

While the seven sins of pride, envy, anger, lust, avarice, gluttony and sloth can be deadly, Parmenter has given each a positive slant as the work traces a universal search for humanity and grace.

As part of The Seven Deadly Sins season the company will also perform the lyrical Protecting Veil, by the Sydney Dance Company's Graeme Murphy.

What: The Seven Deadly Sins

Where: Aotea Centre

When: From tonight to Sunday