Birds with Skymirrors receives its world premiere today at the Festival Theater der Welt in Essen.

Seven frigate birds flying in the evening sun were carrying what appeared to be liquid mirrors dangling from their mouths. One of these mirrors fell into the sea. I discovered it to be a piece of black plastic ribbon from a VHS cassette tape." Lemi Ponifasio

A haunting and timely work choreographed by Samoan-born, New Zealand based, choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, Birds with Skymirrors is at The Edinburgh Playhouse on Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 August as part of Edinburgh International Festival 2010.

The inspiration for the work came while Ponifasio, who realises his work through his company MAU, was working on the Central Pacific attol of Tarawa five years ago.

He says: "I encountered an otherwordly sight of transcendental beauty and of apocalyptic dread. ..For me, Birds with Skymirrors is a question - what is our human role on Earth? I don't want to preach to anybody, I'm just trying make sense of our relationship with the Earth."

For more information and the first chance to see production images from this new dance work, from the choreographer who has been described in the European press as a possible successor to Pina Bausch and Merce Cunningham go here.