PROLONGED cheers forced an encore by Les Odes Bleucs at last, week's superb performance in The Ark of Iguazu: The Great Waters, showing clearly why it had won the Tatiana Barbakoff prize at the Volinine 1995 international choreographic competition. From the opening, with co director, and joint choreographer EricBouvron's brilliantly observed and finely controlled bird and animal movement at the water hole, to the finale with all six dancers' clapping, stamping and slapping their knees to evoke the rhythm of the spectacular eponymous falls on the Parana river bordering Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, this was sheer delight.

With water as its theme, the production leases out every aspect of the substance from its chemical composition through bubbles, rain drops and deluge, to the deserts created by its absence, not forgetting bathtubs past and present, in ritual and primitive use. Co director, joint choreographer and company founder Mercedes Chanquia Aguirre in particular creates a wonderful impression of someone battling against violent winds, helped only by the soundtrack, which at other times has thunder, the hooting of owls and, of course, running, water. It also has the music of the tango, the send up of which, with its role reversals, will be especially appreciated by anyone who saw the recent production of Tango Pasion.

With only Remy Brachet's fine lighting against a blue cyclorama and, using everything from a reading of Chief Seattle's letter on the sale to the white man of Indian land the show demonstrated what can be achieved when imagination and creativity are allied to a training in classical, contemporary and jazz dance.