From a tiny island in the middle of the Indian Ocean comes a contemporary dance show with the unlikely pairing of a 1980s dance movie and The Bible. Rebecca Fox talks to those involved about the French-New Zealand collaboration.
Ask French dancer and choreographer Eric Languet how he came to combine the 1980s movie Flashdance with the biblical Tower of Bable in his latest work and he shrugs.
''I've no clue whatsoever. It came out of my nights of insomnia.''
He does admit Flashdance, which featured actor Jennifer Beal as Alex, a metal worker with aspirations to dance, was one of the first dance movies he ever saw.
''I liked the movie when I was much younger and not so politically aware.''
Mr Languet's company, Danses en L'R, has been collaborating with New Zealand's Footnote Dance Company over the past two years to make contemporary dance production Bbeals a reality.
It opens in Dunedin and promised to create a few surprises for its audience, he said.
There were elements of theatre, original music and circus performance as well as dance involved.
''It is kind of a farce, funny with dark undertones, whacky at times.''
Danses en L'R is based on Reunion Island, a tiny land mass in the Indian Ocean.
It is where Mr Languet was brought up and discovered dance before moving to Paris to study at the national conservatory at Rueil-Malmaison.
It is also where he returned to in the late 1990s after spending 10 years living and working in New Zealand.
During that time he was a principal dancer with the Royal New Zealand Ballet, creating a dozen very well-received dance works from the full-length story ballet Alice (in Wonderland) to shorter contemporary works.
He also came to the realisation that while ballet was a beautiful art form, entertaining and poetic, it did not resonate with real life.
''Ballet talks about dead princes and princesses. It had nothing to do with my environment, the things we go through every day.''
He then discovered physical theatre.
His heart lead him to Australia, where he danced for Meryl Tankard at the Australian Dance Theatre.
His work with Mark Tompkins, around improvisation and real-time composition, and his approach of physical theatre with the Zero theatre, gradually influenced his own artistic endeavours.
''It was more true to how I felt. Why I don't believe in the art form I respect it and I still go to see the ballet.''
He formed Danses en L'R to collaborate with other artists, to work with dancers with disabilities, and direct the multidisciplinary dance training programme, The Hangar.
In the past 15 years, his company has gained an international reputation for contemporary dance regularly touring to large festivals, including Avignon and Marseilles in France.
In recent years the company has worked with companies in nearby Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa.
Dancers from each company spend time in each country so they can better understand where each other comes from, their thinking and their way of life.
''You can't get that from touring and performing - you don't meet the country.''
Fast forward to 2013 and Languet came back to New Zealand to celebrate the Royal New Zealand Ballet's 60th anniversary.
While here he met Footnote Dance Company founder Deidre Tarrant and the two talked about his latest project.
''She was enthused and it's taken two years to put together, quite a quick process.''
Mr Languet and two of his dancers, one from Belgium and one from Portugal, arrived in New Zealand about a month ago to work with Footnote on Bbeals.
''It's so amazing - I know it sounds a bit corny. I've wanted to do this for so long.''
His connection with New Zealand had remained strong in part because of his decision to become a New Zealand citizen when he lived here in the 1990s.
''For me it's been a homecoming. It is emotional for me to be back, to invest energy and creativity here. I enjoy being here and being around New Zealanders.''
Part of the process to create the work involved a group of Footnote dancers travelling to Reunion Island to work with the Danses en L'R company.
Most of his work with the company is based on the relationships between the individual and the group.
''The sense of responsibility the individual has to the group and the group's responsibility to the individual.''
From that came the idea of a fan club and from that a fan club for Jennifer Beal was born, he said.
''[The film Flashdance] was in the '80s and since then she's been in some films and TV series but she's not a bankable star like Lady Gaga or Angelina Jolie. So that is why I chose Jennifer Beal. It's a losers fan club.''
The Tower of Bable connection came from a reading in the Book of Genesis, which the King James version of the Bible translates as:''Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.''
The references to ambition, to the need to be the one on top, to make a name for yourself resonated with him.
Combining the two aspects was still a challenge, he said.
''So the plot is simple. It's a fan club for Jennifer Beal which we bring on stage with the mission of building a tower to get to the top and through the fly door.''
It investigates what people were ready to believe in order to be happy and also how people give away the will power to make decisions for themselves and give themselves meaning for life.
''That is the theme of the piece.''
The two companies will tour Bbeals throughout New Zealand before taking it back to Reunion Island where six shows are scheduled.
