Two Thousand and One Nights

Following their last visit to the Peacock Theatre in 1999 with 'Andalusia: The Lost Glory,' Caracalla Dance Theatre retunrs with a new theatrical creation - 'Two Thousand and One Nights.' The Lebanon's Caracalla Dance Theatre performs at the Peacock Theatre from 12-15 February 2003.

Bawsed in Beirut, Caracalla Dance Theatre blends Eastern culture with modern dance, while their authentically researched productions burst with visual impact. The company continues to be a family affair with founder and artistic director Abdel-Halim Caracalla firmly at the helm. Having studied with Martha Graham in the 1960s, Abdel-Halim works closely with his children, Alissar (chorepgrapher) and Ivan (director).

Ticket office: 020 7863 8222

For further information on the company see the recent article in the latest issue of Dance Europe wher members of the company are interviewed.

Don't call it bellydancing
How did a wasp on a woman's naked body inspire Lebanon's finest choreographer? Ismene Brown went to Beirut to find out for the Daily Telegraph


A stone's throw from the astounding Roman temples of Baalbek, Lebanon, we sit in the shade-dappled garden of a villa, drinking mint tea. Six very old men with very large moustaches study me gravely from under their white headcloths, and brush dust from their blue galabiyas as they get up to dance. They link arms and start a lurching step and a seasick sway that imitates the camel's gait, but with a sudden little hiccup in the middle. The man on the end, however, 40 years younger, can't time the hiccup right.

"The donkey, the donkey!" My host, the director of the Arab world's only contemporary dance company, Abdel-Halim Caracalla, is almost beside himself with pleasure as he points at the embarrassed man stuck in the position known as "riding the donkey". "He needs five more years to learn! My dancers could never do this, they don't understand the rhythms in their bodies. When they say to me, 'Folklore is less good', I say, 'Shut up', because they are outsiders and they could never do this. You have to be Baalbekese."

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Caracalla
By Fancine Brody for Online Review London


Two Thousand and One Nights, the latest production from Lebanon's colourful dance theatre group Caracalla, is a fascinating blend of East and West. With elements of ballet as well as Eastern movements along with singing and narration, and Easternised versions of Rimsky-Korsakov and Ravel mixed in with original music, it is hard to define it as one thing. But a many-splendoured thing it is.

As the curtain rises we are greeted with a luscious scene of thousands of colours, silks and velvets, flowers and feathers, glass and jewels. At the court of Shah'n'Shah people from the four corners of the earth have come to pay their respects.

The story is quite clearly laid out in the slightly pretentious programme but for those who have not read it there is a narrator who tells us what is going to happen before each scene.

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