The film's only misstep is to cast Mr. Bogosian's narration in the first person, which leads to some purplish passages ("We would dance deliriously, our laughter blending with the music!") in an otherwise sober, intelligent film.
The London electronic duo blurts out a deliriously zippy dance track about the importance of slowing things down.
He starts jokes as a stationary observational comic, but finishes them with cartoonish voices, expressive eyes (he can telegraph a full-on freak-out in darting pupils) and deliriously silly dance moves.
The episodic central movement, "Act," included a deliriously whirling folk-dance motif, a luminous ballad and an interlude of keening birdsong.
Chopin expands the work with a big contradance full of deliriously funny parodies of social dances (wind-up waltzes and allemande left and right, hinged at the joints).
Then, when the scoreboard goes up, she shares the moment with her UCLA teammates, who have been mirroring her dance moves from the sidelines, and seem almost as deliriously happy as she is.
Conversely, when a friendly village woman (Freida Pinto) introduces Mowgli to a powder-strewn Indian festival of vivid color, music and dance — the spring celebration known as Holi — he looks deliriously happy.
And her version of "I Could Have Danced All Night," the evening's high point, was bright, sweet and deliriously carried away.
A trip to India in 1993 left Mr. Luhrmann wondering what it would be like to tell a love story the way the Bombay filmmakers do: deliriously paced, in a hodgepodge of styles and highlighted by the occasional Busby Berkeley dance extravaganza.
Each evening will include "INSIDE/OUTSIDE," by the choreographer YOSHIKO CHUMA, plus eight 10-minute dances, two per night; next Sunday's finale will have Ms. Chuma and CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS, who was responsible for last spring's deliriously riveting "Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins".
