The avant-garde Iceland Dance Company will make its Shanghai debut Sunday with works about love. In addition, the laugh-a-minute Spanish physical comedy trio Tricicle will perform "Sit," the history of the chair, from May 5-7.

Iceland is known to most Chinese as the home of musician Bjork and a land where we can see the magnificent Northern lights. However, many are unaware that the Northern European country has also cultivated artistic forms with a unique Icelandic flavor.

Tomorrow night, the Iceland Dance Company will make its debut in Shanghai and perform two of its award-winning modern dance works under the universal theme of love.

In "Luna" (2004 Icelandic "Dance Award" and "Best Dance Piece"), a group of young people dances the waltz of life under the moonlight to cherish their youthful dreams and burning passion. Images of love, longing, hope, and joy are orchestrated into a dreamlike gypsy serenade. "Happy New Year" fuses theatrical humor and sarcasm into choreography tailor-made for the dancers.

The Dance Europe once described the company as "a sexy group," which was "plainly adept at theatrical dance with a high kinetic edge." The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called it a "superb world-class company." It will move to Guangzhou and Beijing after the Shanghai premiere.

Meanwhile, Spain's beloved physical comedy group Tricicle will return to Shanghai during the May Day holiday, staging its latest hit "Sit" for audiences who might have missed their extraordinary performance in 2005.

The Spanish comedy trio is acclaimed for having created a new performing genre: a mixture based on silent movies, clown techniques, mime, and conventional theater.

Its motto is "to hear the audience laughing every 10 seconds."

The chair has always been an indispensable object in the odyssey of human beings. It has witnessed peace treaties, mouth-watering feasts, congenial conversations, sensational shows, tough trials, long waits, as well as passionate love affairs.

In the play, the chair is the focal point, and its history is told, from the time man, or woman first placed her bottom on a rock or a tree stump.

"Tricicle's plays are often created based on everyday life and everyday objects," says Ren Yi from Shanghai Oriental Arts Center where the play will be staged.

"It aims to make people laugh through a subtle, simple and surprising type of humor - somewhere between the reality and the absurd."

The group first visited Shanghai one and a half years ago during their Asia debut.

(Shanghai Daily April 29, 2007)