Stressing the pointe

He's joking of course. The Venezuelan-born choreographer has been riding the crest of such a wave lately, it's almost as if he needs to find something to complain about. The winner of an Olivier Award this year for his work on the acclaimed re-staging of Cabaret, he's in the midst of rehearsals for ENO's new production of Robert Wright and George Forrest's Baghdad-based musical Kismet and has taken over the reins at Phoenix, the Leeds-based company challenging Rambert for the title of Britain's top touring outfit.

To top all that, he's just learned that a triple bill of his work with Phoenix has been chosen to close this year's prestigious Venice Biennale festival. 'That's the cherry on the cake for me,' he says. 'It doesn't get any better than Venice. It's a real honour.'

That De Frutos has been embraced by the dance establishment is somewhat against the odds. Announcing his arrival as a solo performer with a selfchoreographed, bare-buttocked romp through Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring some 20 years ago, De Frutos earned a celebrated notoriety for leaving blood and guts all over the stage with inyourface performances that were totally draining, both physically and emotionally, for performer and audience alike.

Given that, his appointment to succeed Darshan Singh Bhuller as head of Phoenix, a company renowned for strong dancers but scarcely at the cutting edge in terms of choreography, raised a few eyebrows. 'Darshan had already changed the company's image,' says De Frutos. 'And what I saw in the Phoenix dancers is that they dance like their lives depend on it - and that was always my feeling when I was a performer.

'And I wanted a challenge. It seems that artists and writers can have different styles and creative periods but, if a choreographer wants to change, even a little bit, it's somehow different. For many years I was "the naked one" so I had to show I was more than that.'

Not that De Frutos is either disowning or abandoning the full-blooded sensual physicality that characterises his work. Although recent pieces, such as the award-winning Elsa Canasta for Rambert, have highlighted his sense of cinematic glamour, he is as devoted to the idea of dance as visceral excitement as ever. But he admits he felt the need to prove his talent is as much about choreographic craft as it is about celebrating the power of the human body.

It's a blend that promises to bloom with Phoenix, as De Frutos plans to present neglected dance classics alongside his own work. In the first programme under his directorship, De Frutos is reviving Jane Dudley's seminal 1938 solo Harmonica Breakdown, a breakthrough work in the evolution of modern dance, alongside his new version of Stravinsky's tale of premarital mayhem, Les Noces.

The Russian is a composer close to De Frutos's heart. 'I visited Stravinsky's tomb in Venice and it was covered by a mountain of mouldy pointe shoes - somehow that inspired me.

'Les Noces is so violent internally - what goes on in their heads is so repressed - that you have to bring that physically to the stage. It's a stag party gone very, very wrong and the dancers end up getting covered in blood from head to toe.'

If Les Noces is De Frutos working at gut instinct level, he's no less proud of his flourishing sideline in musicals, not least because his Olivier success was one in the eye for the purists who accused him of selling out by going the West End route. He's proud of his part in a trend that has blurred the line between contemporary and commercial choreography, bringing a fresh sense of style to big money productions.

'To me it's either good dance or bad dance, as simple as that. I pick my own dancers to use in musicals. When I work on a musical, the choreography is not only the steps on stage, it's in every detail - I immerse myself in the whole process.'

Conscious that he's hit a creative peak, the indefatigable De Frutos is full of plans for projects he intends to juggle alongside his Phoenix tenure. Vying for top of the list is the idea of exchanging duets with hot ballet choreographer Christopher Wheeldon - De Frutos makes one for Wheeldon's new company and vice versa - and a collaboration on a full-length show with composer Richard Thomas, of Jerry Springer The Opera fame.

'I'm co-writing the scenario called Cattle Call - that's what they call open auditions - and we're calling it a "dancicle". Richard says it will be A Chorus Line with cows.' De Frutos, the master of translating bums on stage into bums on seats, has another hit on his hands.

Phoenix Dance Theatre performs Friday and Saturday at Sadler's Wells, Rosebery Avenue EC1, 7.30pm, £9 to £22. Tel: 0870 737 7737. www.sadlerswells.com Tube: Angel ENO's Kismet is in rep at the Coliseum WC2, June 25 to July 14.