Romance turns to tragedy as winter sets in

By BERNADETTE RAE

The Lady Of The Camellias is billed as the classical centrepiece of AK03's dance programme. That is a big ask for the Taipei Ballet Company, a small organisation only just emerging on the international scene, and this will be its first presentation of a full-length ballet.

But guest choreographer Allen Yu has always been a groundbreaker. At 21, with a degree in chemical engineering behind him, he decided to dance. That would usually be too late to start a ballet career, but within months Yu was at the Royal Conservatory in the Hague, the first male dancer in Taiwan to be granted a national scholarship.

"Twenty years ago there were very few boys dancing in Taiwan," he laughs. "If you were not too bad you had a lot of chances."

Yu has been based in Europe since 1986, chalking up a few more records to prove he is "not too bad". Not only was he the first male Taiwanese professional dancer in Europe, but he was also the first Chinese ballet director of a European company. He is presently ballet master and choreographer of the Graz Opera House, in Austria. This year he returned to Taipei to produce his version of The Lady of the Camellias for the Taipei Ballet, to celebrate the company's 10th anniversary.

Yu created the work in 1999, for the State Ballet Theatre in Coburg, Germany, where he was ballet director and choreographer from 1998 to 2001. It was made to mark the 100th anniversary of Verdi's death and Yu spent over a year preparing the music, an arrangement taken from eight of Verdi's operas, before beginning on the choreography.

Translating the work for the youthful Taipei Ballet Company has not been without its challenges, he says. The Lady of the Camellias is based on Alexander Dumas' famous play, telling the story of a brilliant courtesan and her tragic encounter with true love. "So it is very 19th century and high society - rococo and baroque. And it has taken some time for these young dancers to get into the European temperament. They come from a totally different cultural background," says Yu.

There are two notable exceptions: guest artist Daniel Cimpean, dancing the role of the lover, Armand, is Romanian, and Yo Otaki, the courtesan Marguerite, is Japanese. She will be a familiar figure to dance audiences here, having performed for three years with the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company, before settling in Taipei this year.

Like all good storytellers, Yu has taken a few liberties with the original tale to adapt it to ballet and to emphasise his own themes. Armand's father, the Baron, has a slight role in Verdi's opera, but is an important figure in Yu's ballet, representing the power of money and the material world.

Armand, in Yu's reading, is the symbol for true love. Marguerite, who first sells her body for her place in high society and then meets Armand, is plunged into the conflict between these two forces.

Yu's third theme is the effect of society's morals.

He also draws a parallel between the stages of the story and the four seasons, which is reflected in the choreography, music, costumes and lighting.

It is spring when Marguerite is young and beautiful and the darling of society, summer when she falls in love with Armand and life looks to be so easy. Autumn brings conflict and argument and winter's harshness accompanies the last days of her life.

In the third act Yu also takes a more contemporary approach, with a casino-style set and the introduction of fantasy characters playing cards who taunt and attract the main players in the drama, underlining their fate with the roll of a dice.

* The Taipei Ballet Company appears in AK03 in collaboration with Kokako Concerts and the Taiwanese Council for Cultural Affairs.

* Bernadette Rae travelled to Taipei courtesy of Kokako Concerts.

Performance

* What: The Lady of the Camellias

* Where & when: The Civic, Sept 20 & 21, 7.30pm; Sept 21 matinee 2pm