WAY OF THE DRAGON

Two of China's most compelling cultural exports are about to debut their shows in Scotland. Jeffrey Taylor got a sneak preview and discovered some unusual surprises

IN one of those weird moments of artistic synchronicity, not one but two Chinese dance companies come to Scotland to perform next month. But though they both hail from the same country and both fuse modern and ancient traditions, their origins and inspiration couldn't be more different.

At the end of May, Edinburgh's Festival Theatre hosts two performances by the Guandong Modern Dance Company, an unashamedly forward-looking group which was formed only eight years ago as China's first professional contemporary dance company. Now fast winning a reputation abroad for its adventurous choreography and intense theatricality, the group has appeared at festivals worldwide For their seven-date British tour, the company will perform work by two British choreographers, Becky Edmunds and Charlie Morrissey. It's a typically brave move which meshes with the company's underlying ethos - to create a modern form of Chinese dance by incorporating contemporary international elements.

First over the border, though is the Wheel Of Life, a potential blockbuster in the Riverdance mould which allies stadium rock techniques with a 1,500-year-old monastic tradition. Performed by the kung fu warrior monks of China's Shaolin Temple, deep in China's Henan province, the show is directed by Micha Bergese who choreographed the Millennium Dome celebrations. It was Bergese who went to China a year ago, travelling for two days into the Songshan Mountains of Henan, 450 miles south-west of Beijing, to see the monks perform at their 1,500-year-old temple.

"I knew I had a hit on my hands when I saw them perform for the first time in the temple courtyard," he says. "It was like finding Shangri La. Everything about the temple is massive. There is an enormous flight of steps climbing the mountainside and when you walk through the huge portal entrance the first thing you see is a larger- than-life golden Buddha."

The community of 300 monks is headed by the venerable Shi Yong Xin, the 1,500-year-old temple's Fangzhang, or abbot. They dedicate their lives to spiritual enlightenment through the practice of Zen Buddhism and the disciplined exercises of kung fu. Their place in the history of martial arts, as the originators of kung fu, has created a worldwide demand for their knowledge.

The show is designed by Mark Fisher (who created the sets used on Pink Floyd's epic Wall shows) and has a specially-written soundtrack by Barrington Pheloung. But although the story - a medieval scenario of imperial duplicity and monkish nobility - is drawn from the monks' own traditions, it's largely irrelevant: the gasps of astonishment are inspired by the apparently superhuman feats achieved by the cast of 20 Buddhist monks and five boy trainees. They are lifted aloft on sharpened spears, sandwiched between beds of nails and concrete blocks, perform handstands on two finger tips and backflips using heads not hands. They splinter four-inch wooden staves against each other's bodies without blinking and duel with swords at such incredible speed that the blades appear to pass straight through their bodies.

But how conducive is western show-business to the pursuit of Nirvana? Cast members, monks Wen Ting Cao and Jian Xin Cui, who entered the monastery aged nine and eight respectively and are both bound by strict vows of poverty and celibacy, seem untroubled by temptation.

"We prefer our temple bedrooms," says Wen Ting Cao, he of the finger-tip handstand, through an interpreter. "We lie on just a board with a single sheet for cover." Adds Jian Xin Cui: "If we feel desire for a girl, we face the wall until the feelings pass."

But strict observation of the monks' no-women rule brings its own difficulties. "We have a female costume designer," Bergese explains, "but women are not allowed to touch the monks." So how does she handle the costume fittings? "There are difficulties," admits Bergese. "We try not to think about it."

Shaolin Wheel Of Life is at the Edinburgh Playhouse on May 9 (call 0870-606 3424 for tickets); the Guandong Modern Dance Company is at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre on May 24 and 25 (call 0131-529 6000 for tickets) wheeloflife.co.uk/ eft.co.uk/

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