BEIRUT: May Ogden-Smith is irresistible – lively, smiling, intelligent, but impressive in her humility. The veteran choreographer spoke with The Daily Star about “Esquisses,” her present Beirut show, and her past 17 years of activism in the Beirut dance community.

With a childhood that included both classical voice and dance training, Ogden-Smith has always loved the stage, where her “rather timid” self quickly evaporates. She says it took some time to discover that her true performance niche lay in choreography.

“Years ago,” she recalls, “as a teacher of pre-primary pupils … we had the idea of pretending we were a circus for the year-end show. I started creating basic steps and sequences.”

Since that epiphany, Ogden-Smith has steadily built up what has become a truly impressive curriculum vitae, including a position as a dance instructor at Lyonnais Compagnie Hallet Eghayan, and a 2001 Grade de Chevalier award in Arts and Letters from the French Ministry of Culture.

Despite this recognition, Ogden-Smith plays down her achievements declaring that “it is essential to remain modest in this art.”

Ogden-Smith choreographed and is directing “Esquisses,” currently being staged at Theatre Monnot. The piece re-interprets various master works of painting through movement, deploying semi-professional adult dancers, and a cadre of children that Ogden-Smith works with at her day job, as a teacher at the French Protestant College.

Ogden-Smith shaped “Esquisses” around paintings that she says she’s had long artistic crushes on. In designing the show, she would examine the paintings, designing choreography and choosing music by following the feelings the various works stirred within her. Whatever inspiration the paintings suggested was supplemented by extensive research into the artists and paintings involved.

With six of the show’s 16 scenes danced by children, Ogden-Smith was worried about consistency, but she found the children to be “terribly professional.” The children, all girls aged 7-10 years, surprised the choreographer with their receptiveness to her direction. She found them to be at times more malleable than the adults, while the “freshness” they brought the show was, she says, unique and invaluable.

“And now,” Ogden-Smith sighs, “they are starting to cry now, because they know the production will soon come to an end.”

She says audience response has so far been “excellent.” Always encouraging to the artist, she says, as soon as she exits the auditorium, she “meets three or four people ready to sponsor the next production.”

Despite the show’s success so far, Ogden-Smith takes a moment to lament the lack of infrastructure within Beirut’s dance community. “It has been very hard to find dancers,” she says, “as the dance community here in Beirut is very limited.”

Male dancers, rare enough in larger dance communities, are, she says, nearly impossible to find in Beirut. “I would have loved to have some male dancers.”

As for plans with her future projects, Ogden-Smith remains coy. While she admits that she is currently working on two projects – one with adults and another again mixing adult and children dancers – no more details can be teased from her, except a warning for those who would slow her down.

“Nobody can stop me now,” she says. “It’s too late! I am too old to let anybody stop me.”

May Ogden-Smith’s “Esquisses” will be staged Friday-Sunday at Theatre Monnot. For more information please call 01421875.