Tyneside-based Liv Lorent is giving seven dancers the ultimate test of their performing courage by asking them to take off all their clothes on stage

SEVEN naked dancers, four female and three male, appearing on circular, rotating, black platforms at Gatehead's The Sage is more than likely to raise the temperature in January. Choreographer and founder of Newcastle-based balletlorent, Liv Lorent, laughs, despite being at the mercy of a heavy cold, at any thought of courting controversy with her latest work, Designer Body. Instead, she explains that the unclothed finale follows a deliberate path of the seven removing expensively-created Paul Shriek costumes and make-up in a 50- minute performance in the intimacy of the Sage's Hall Two space.

"I had the whole project in my mind and it was completely one concept (rather than being deliberately controversial) because designing bodies is what I do. Paul Shriek does that with his costumes and I think we all play God a little bit with what nature does with the human body. Everyday, everyone perverts nature a little bit, whether it's girls wearing padded bras or fashion distorting people's heights or the width of their shoulders.

"I wanted to take that journey coming from the extremely designed stage with Paul designing their clothes and full make-up and hairstyles and creating an iconic Hollywood-style image.

"I wanted to site them on a turntable so that they would appear to be like a little girl's musical jewellery box, when you open it, a ballerina pops up and goes around on a podium and it's just there being beautiful," she says explaining why she created seven turntables.

The spinning stage areas move at 25rpm (revs per minute) and Liv admits that she can't stay on the turntables herself.

"It's unbelievable what they do. I can't stay on a turntable for more than 30 seconds because it makes me feel awful.

You can't prepare for the reality of what it's like. Over the first few rehearsals the dancers were falling off all the time because of the velocity or they'd be sick.

The great thing about the dancers were that they kept getting back on.

"All the choreography stays on the podiums, there's no physical contact between dancers, but it does create some Busby Berkeley patterns which are beautiful and makes them look like they're flying," adds Liz who was keen to create a dance piece which went from one extreme to the other.

"The body starts out maxed with design and gradually, for 50 minutes, all that is lost and we are just left with a complete nude sculpture, more like a living gallery," she says. The nudity of the final scene has been made more acceptable to North-East eyes by the efforts of people like art photographer Spencer Tunick, who recently captured hundreds of naked North-East people in the Newcastle/Gateshead Quayside area.

"I was talking to someone who said thank God for Spencer Tunick, now he has done this you're not going to have the same controversy'. My mission has been to look at the art of the body rather than the pornography of the body, but it is terrifying for them. I think it's courage rather than self- FREQUENCIES Classic FM: (101-102 FM)NVirgin: (1215 AM) Alpha: (103.2 FM) Fresh AM: (936, 1413 AM) talkSPORT: (1053, 1089 AM) Metro Radio: (97.1-103FM) Magic: (1152,1170 AM) Radio Newcastle: (1458 AM and 95.4, 96, 104.4 FM) Radio York: (666, 1260 AM and 103.7, 104.3, 95.5 FM) Sun FM: (103.4 FM) Century Radio: (100-102 FM), Galaxy 105-106: (106.4 FM) Weekendradio SATURDAY RADIO SUNDAY RADIO confidence they need to take all their clothes off. All dancers have criticisms of their own bodies. I do have some dancers who love the project idea and want to see it but say I can't be in it because I can't do it'. My seven dancers had to deal with a lot of personal demons just to get through this, but they trust me and they trust what I'm doing," Liv explains.

"The dancers have been made completely aware of the project all the way along. I've never pretended to them it was anything else such as you get all the way down to your Y-fronts'. The whole project would fall apart."

Designer Body will be seen in Liverpool later in the year and Liv feels that it can be performed in any reasonable space, including art galleries, because there is no need of a sprung floor on this occasion.

"My next project will be in the North- East making a piece for Dance City's next Newcastle festival and inviting 12 pregnant women from the region to join me. Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment,"

she laughs.

* The dancers taking part are: Caroline Reece, Debbi Purtill, Meritxell Pan Cabo, Katryn Jackson, Gavin Coward, Raymond Roa and Gary Clarke.

Designer Body, January 11- 12, Hall Two, The Sage, Gateshead, 8pm.

Tickets: £7-£14.

Box Office: 0191-443-4661 www.thesagegateshead.com