the children of paradise

i admit there IS something very ambivalent about the performers in Budapest having been dressed in very light and colourful organza and little else. there is about any child of the paradise, whether suggested on Cambodian stone reliefs or in a Varieté-showballet in Las Vegas.

there were important differences though: the dancers were not set up directly to face the audience or dance directed towards them in a traditional sense - when they did mix with the audience afterwards, there was an air of menace and danger in their beauty - in the final dance, there was no prescribed eye contact with the audience, the dancers were left to dance from their own motivation, which they did marvellously and with beautiful abandon, dancing off all the hardships of the project :-) also, the final dance was not the only act happening, there were fire-acrobats and people doing the walking con·sens·us (however, we quickly came to a halt to admire the dancers)

in terms of representation it would have been more clear, if the company had been women and men, one could add of course diversity of race, question body types usually put on stage etc.

(like Steve Paxton appears to have hinted at, in his dance Satisfyin Lover)