The theatrical sensation Stomp from Britain will perform at the Century Theatre from May 13 to 16.

Stomp, a unique combination of percussion, movement and visual comedy, was created in Brighton, UK, in the summer of 1991 and made its debut in the Edinburgh Festival that year.

It became the Guardian's Critic's Choice and won the Daily Express Best of the Fringe award at the festival.

It was the result of a 10-year collaboration between its creators, Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas.

Cresswell and McNicholas have worked together since 1981, as members of a street band and the theatre group Cliff Hanger, making music, doing street performances and producing short films based on their musical ideas.

Stomp was originally written and choreographed by Cresswwell as part of the band's stage show, but it later became the starting point for Stomp's climactic dustbin dance.

"Although we flirted with the recording industry, we never felt comfortable with it and were more inspired by groups like Kodo from Japan and Burundi from Central Africa," says McNicholas,

"So we had experimented with music made from found objects for a long time, but always as part of a more traditional set up."

"It was in the spring of 1990, when we'd been through a two-year-long legal battle with our record company, that we decided to create a show based completely upon these wackier concepts. So Stomp was born."

He describes it as "a piece of theatre that's been created by musicians." Without narrative or dialogue, or melody, it is totally based on rhythm.

"The prime directive for all the performances is: Rhythm comes first, movement comes second. We try to make that mixture more interesting and more palatable by adding levels of comedy to it," he added.

Cresswell said the inspiration for the shows can come from anywhere.

"A lot of it is using props that lend themselves to rhythm and drumming, such as brooms or dustbins or hammers - they are all quite obvious things. They are all everyday objects that anybody can find, and anyone can have a go at."

Between 1991 and 1994 the original cast of Stomp played to capacity audiences around the world: from Hong Kong to Barcelona, from Dublin to Sydney.

The touring culminated in a sell-out season at London's Sadler's Wells theatre in January 1994, for which Stomp received an Oliver nomination for Best Entertainment and won the award for Best Choreography in a West End show.

In 1994 they were invited to play Off Broadway and their success there spread across the United States and now they have five companies touring worldwide.

Performance Details:

Dates: 19：30 on May 13,14,15,16

Venue: The Century Theatre

Ticket Price: 1800 yuan (for VIP), 1500 yuan, 1200 yuan, 800 yuan and 400 yuan

Booking：68511556, 68511557

(China Daily April 22, 2004)