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Yuri Ng explores the dark side of humankind in his eclectic new dance show, writes Clare Morin

See listings for details.

It will be an evening of drag queens, near naked dancers, lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. No, we’re not talking about another night out at Propaganda; this is the intriguing new dance show Love on Sale by the City Contemporary Dance Company and dance innovator Yuri Ng.

Love on Sale: Cautionary Tales of Sins and Dancers is a multi-media project that weaves modern dance and drama into a surrealist work that takes as its chief inspiration Bertolt Brecht's satirical 1933 ballet/opera The Seven Deadly Sins. The collaboration between Brecht and composer Kurt Weill tells the story of two sisters who travel through cities in America, grappling with the seven deadly sins. Ng has taken the essence of this work and Weill's decadent German score to create an entirely new work, which abandons the story about the two sisters and instead explores the essence of how humans walk the tightrope between sin and virtue.

Ng says that he was inspired to do the work as Brecht’s original text resounded with where he is in his career right now. "I thought Kurt Weill and Brecht were very cynical," he says. “It made me ask: ‘Have I come to this point already? Have I become jaded?’ When I saw everybody dedicated to this work even though the time was so limited – I felt comforted."

Ng has a reason to feel somewhat jaded; he's been a major figure on the local dance scene since he returned here in 1993 from his time with the National Ballet of Canada. He has since choreographed works for all the major dance companies in the city, receiving accolades for his inventive style. Yet, he says, the continual talk of the West Kowloon Cultural District and the increasingly popularising theatre scene has pushed him to question the very nature of dance.

In Love on Sale, Ng matches seven male and seven female dancers from the CCDC with up-and-coming musician Chu Pak-him (whose independent band, JuicyNing, is rising to prominence). Chu will be acting almost like a narrator in the piece, weaving storytelling elements into the mix as the dancers investigate the seven deadly sins. "I don't want to call him a narrator," says Ng of Chu’s involvement. "He is an agent between two different substances; there is a giver and a receiver. The audience is a receiver and we are a giver. He's also a travel agent, he takes people on a journey, and he's a sales agent, he makes sure these bodies, these spirits, are sold to a greater power," he leans forward and smiles: "Isn't it nasty?"

With the bodies moving under Chu's command to Weill’s music, the set has been designed by another artistic force: brilliant photographer, graphic designer, and fine artist anothermountainman (aka Stanley Wong). While the multimedia edge suggests a full dose of entertainment, Ng suggests that there are parallels between Brecht’s original ballet of the two sisters who travel America to raise money to build a house in Louisiana, and Hong Kong’s current preoccupation with West Kowloon.

"At the end of the day we are not just making money to build a little house in West Kowloon. Whether or not that little house will really happen, it's the journey that matters. I'm not saying all these things in the work, but these are the things in my head. It is a show, and why are we making a show? What are we doing it for? Is it for ourselves as artists, or for entertainment? I'm trying to push myself, if I don't do this I'll get very upset in this day and age, this art making business. I'll just run away. But I find I'm attached to this place, is it because of habit? Or fear? Should I do something about it? I made this project to find out. To me, it's therapy."

It may be therapy to Yuri Ng, but for the audience it promises to be a provocative and sinful night out.

See listings for details.