A work of airy and inward intensity, in which six dancers seem to generate Scarlatti's music rather than simply respond to it, the piece has been hailed as "spellbinding" and "miraculous".
But the sheer relentlessness of their anger ("Elvis never meant shit to me... my heroes don't appear on no stamps") and cold scientific analysis of prejudice ("black father, white mother, black baby"), combined with the sound of a drill piercing your head, made for something urgent and spellbinding.
The process is spellbinding.
And yet all are prospering.True, it is more difficult to operate in hot climates than in temperate ones, and disease and pestilence do nothing for labour productivity, but these are hardly spellbinding insights.
It is said to be "possible" that these wonderful drawings were used as visual aids by itinerant storytellers who on long dark evenings in remote village gatherings wove spellbinding tales around them.
In the real world, he is the biggest test yet of claims made by AOL Time Warner, formed in a much-hyped merger at the start of 2001, that an integrated media conglomerate can conjure up spellbinding cross-promotion synergies.AOL Time Warner does not own the publishing rights to the book.
The Times Literary Supplement called the books "spellbinding", the Observer predicted that they could become "a classic in the great English nonsense tradition", while the Times Educational Supplement likened the books to Alice in Wonderland, a comparison that has been made many times since.The Uncle books certainly share some of the surrealism of Lewis Carroll.
He had impressed the nation with his spellbinding keynote speech during the Democratic National Convention in 1984, when he described the country as a tale of two cities, a rich one and a poor one filled with mounting despair.
Vassanji's The Assassin's Song, which traced the effects of 800 years of history and mythology on the turmoil and strife of modern India and Pakistan; to Alissa York's Effigy, the spellbinding tale of a family whose members share a wide-open faith and a closetful of secrets.
The shows were known for their musical scores, which were rooted in global popular music; simple but engaging plot lines; fantastic costumes and special effects; and, above all, spellbinding feats of physical daring.
And if some of these trees could talk, their tales would be spellbinding.
