By Clive Freeman Aug 28, 2007, 6:36 GMT
Berlin - Dancers with fancy frilled skirts appear on stage, hands on hips, chins tilted proudly and provocatively. Suddenly, there's a piercing shriek, a whirl of skirts and petticoats as legs are thrust high in the air marking the start of a boisterous 2007 version of the Cancan.
But the scene is not in Paris, London or New York, but in Europe's biggest revue theatre at the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin where, the naughty, saucy, titillating atmosphere of the Golden Twenties is revived in a spectacular summer show entitled 'Glanzlichter' (Highlights).
French choreographer Nadege Maruta, for 12 years a principal dancer at the Moulin Rouge, has brought the Cancan, the dance that first became the rage of Montparnasse working-class ballrooms in the 1830s, back to Berlin.
'Only the world's best dancers can stand the pace of the Cancan,' says Maruta, whose dancing and expertise has wowed audiences in Shanghai, Washington and Paris over the past 25 years.
Asked about the Cancan phenomenon Maruta replies: 'It's more than just a dance - it's a statement. Back in the 19th century it was an expression of and synonym for an independent woman. Women who dared to dance the Cancan were non-conformist, self-confident and of course sexy.'
The result? The Cancan was banned for a spell by the then sanctimonious French police - who thought it was a sin for women to show their legs, be too liberal, and self-assured.
In Berlin, Maruta rejects talk of seeking to catapult the Cancan into the 21st century. 'The Cancan is classical. You don't modernise a classic,' she says with a grimace. 'What I try to do here is accentuate the wildness of the dance, not do a Chorus Line take-off.'
Palast ballet director, Roland Gawlik, who thrilled audiences at the city's Comic Opera back in the late 1960s and 70s when dancing with partner Hannelore Bey, says Nadege Maruta's name was the only one considered when the decision was taken to create a special Cancan choreography for the Berlin summer revue.
'Her world is the Cancan. No other person can bring over the dance with the total degree of passion that she does,' says Gawlik.
Some 1,500 Berliners attended the premiere of 'Highlights' at the Friedrichstadtpalast recently in which the 60-member-strong ensemble - 40 female dancers, 20 men - performed Maruta's short but exquisitely choreographed Cancan programme.
Ahead of the premiere, this Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa reporter interviewed two of the show's performers.
Natallia Kuzmenka, 23, from Minsk in White Russia, a dancer at the Friedrichstadtpalast for the past three years, said: 'It's a lot of fun here. It's a huge theatre which manages to be cosy. We have daily morning rehearsals, followed by the show in the evenings.
'I'm fascinated by Berlin's international flavour. The company's dancers come from 16 different countries in the world, including Brazil, Australia, Canada, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, England, Serbia, Croatia, France and Poland,' she points out.
'If l wanted to, I could probably get through the day speaking only Russian. You also hear a lot of English. But I speak German, so there are never any communication barriers.'
Natallia returns to visit her parents in Minsk every summer. 'So l don't suffer from any homesickness, and am quite happy to return to Berlin at the end of my stay.'
Dancer Olga Golata comes from a town just outside Moscow. She didn't have a classical ballet training like many of her colleagues. 'My background is more in folk dancing. When I was told we'd got to dance the Cancan, I thought, 'this is going to be difficult.' I'd never danced it before.
'But being a folk dancer probably helps. The Cancan movements are not so classical, but demand a lot of energy, so coping with the wildness of the dance was a challenge,' she says whimsically.
Olga says Berlin is great. 'What I like about the theatre is the chance one gets to learn something new, whether it is jazz, classical dance or the Cancan.
'If there are new dance trends in America, Africa or elsewhere we hear about them swiftly through our excellent choreographers. So there's always a buzz about the place,' she says.
Apart from the special Cancan programme, 'Highlights' offers a mixed assortment of entertainment, including tap-dancing sequences, trapeze and hoola-hoop artists, plus songs and jazz numbers, drawn from famous New York, Paris and Berlin revues dating back to the 1920s.
An exciting item for the public was the so-called 'Wheel of Death' act in which the brothers Rai and Rudi Navas-Velez from Ecuador, performed breathtaking exploits on an eight-metre high rotating wheel.
At a reception after the show, one of the brothers, told how he'd learned to live with the dangers of his dare-devil act. Two years ago in Great Yarmouth in England, his fiancee, was killed in a fall from a trapeze at a show they were performing at.
'It was horrible moment for me' he said, 'and for seven months I could no longer perform the 'Wheel of Death' act. I was terrified of looking down from such a height. My father and brother were able to help me overcome my fears.'
Footnote: 'Highlights', a revue, at the Friedrichstadtpalast, runs until September 9 and from December 29 to 31.
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