The singer won video of the year for Cowboy Casanova and also performance of the year for Temporary Home.

Keith Urban took home the male video of the year award for ‘Til Summer Comes Around, while Miranda Lambert’s White Liar scooped best female video.

The awards, which took place in the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, were voted for by fans.

Collaborative video

Collecting one of her awards, Underwood addressed her “awesome fans”.

She said: “They were there before I had anything, an album, a record deal, a tour or anything like that. They built me from the ground up.”

Urban, who was accompanied to the ceremony by his wife Nicole Kidman, took to the stage to perform Hit The Ground Runnin’ with John Mayer.

Meanwhile, Lady Antebellum’s Need You Now was named group video of the year, and duo video of the year went to Brooks and Dunn for Indian Summer, just two months before they perform together for the last time on their Last Roundup tour.

“We were not expecting this,” Brooks said. “So much that Mr Dunn has gone to the restroom – in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

“I told you you should be here. I am not bringing this to you. You’re going to have to come and get it. This is the kind of thing that will make them think we’re going to break up the duo,” he joked.

The trophy for collaborative video of the year went to Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins for Hillbilly Bone, while Luke Bryan’s Do I was named weekend breakthrough video of the year.

The musician stormed the stage to tell the audience Beyonce should have won best female video prize.

Singer Swift did not finish her speech

Madonna made a personal tribute to Michael Jackson at the ceremony, saying she felt she had “abandoned him” and “felt his pain”.

The late star’s sister Janet recreated the dance moves from their duet Scream.

‘Magnificent creature’

West jumped onto the stage after Swift scooped the award, and said: “Taylor, I’m really happy for you, and I’m gonna let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.”

The audience jeered, and Beyonce, who won video of the year and two other awards for Single Ladies, later invited Swift back onto the stage to complete her acceptance speech.

West wrote on his blog later: “I’m soooo sorry to Taylor Swift, her fans and her mom.

Lady Gaga gave a flamboyant performance

“I spoke to her mother right after and she said the same thing my mother would’ve said. She is very talented.”

Madonna, who appeared on stage dressed in black, spoke about Jackson’s life lived in the glare of publicity, saying “I had a childhood and was allowed to make mistakes and find my own way in the world.”

She added that when she heard of his death: “We had allowed this magnificent creature who once set the world on fire to somehow slip through the cracks.”

The ceremony concluded with an airing of the full trailer for This Is It, the documentary about Jackson’s final concert rehearsals, due to be released next month.

Other winners at the ceremony, hosted by Russell Brand, included Lady Gaga for best new artist, whose live performance culminated in her pretending to stab herself and swinging from the ceiling.

Britney Spears won best pop video for Womanizer, with prizes also going to Green Day, Eminem and TI.

The Boston-based company Kelley Donovan & Dancers showed “Borrowed Bones,” a new work by Ms. Donovan notable for its fluid, sensuous movement; skillful structure; and evocation of a self-contained yet somehow expansive world.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times Members of Kelley Donovan & Dancers, which is based in Boston, performing Ms. Donovan’s “Borrowed Bones” at the Merce Cunningham Studio.

Developing a movement vocabulary isn’t much of a concern among contemporary choreographers right now, but Ms. Donovan bucks the trend both by making work with a noticeably personal style and by ignoring the temptations of text, speech or film.

Instead, “Borrowed Bones” is that rare beast, spotted only occasionally in the downtown dance savannah: a pure dance work that’s actually full of dance. It’s so pure that Ms. Donovan almost ignores her music — a subtle mix of electronic scores briefly permeated by voices — but provides more than enough of her own rhythmic dynamics to carry the piece.

At the beginning Ms. Donovan appeared alone, her first movements a compelling indication of what was to come. Larger-bodied than most professional dancers, she turned that into a sculptural asset through her gorgeously fluid, strongly rooted movement. Curving her arms — elbows leading the way — through space, rippling her body into coiled lunges, tumbling fluidly across the floor, Ms. Donovan felt like a force of nature

Remarkably, that impact didn’t disappear as she ceded the stage to her dancers. Some of the stylistic elements and choreographic motifs apparent in her solo — the rolling, sliding floor work; the quick folding-in arms; the almost classical pirouettes; the jumps into arabesque crashing to the floor — recur throughout the work.

But Ms. Donovan knows how to make her dancers (all excellent) emerge as individuals, how to weave variation into her movement and how to use counterpoint to keep our eyes and minds active. In several group sequences she set slow, weighted movement against faster, athletic floor work, building the pace, then seamlessly dissolving it and dispersing the dancers.

In its calm segues between large groups and small, intimate solos and duets, “Borrowed Bones” was both economical and lush, never a moment wasted or exceeded. Ms. Donovan should come to New York again, soon.

Actors John Travolta and Kelly Preston say they are "heartbroken" over their son's death.

They left the Bahamas late Monday night, said Obie Wilchcombe, a member of the Bahamian parliament.

An autopsy was conducted Monday in the Bahamas on the body of the couple’s son, Jett Travolta.

The 16-year-old was found unconscious Friday while on vacation with his family in the Bahamas’ West End.

He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival, local police said.

The autopsy results have not been released, but employees of the funeral home that handled the remains said “seizure” was listed as the cause of death on the death certificate, celebrity Web site TMZ reported.

An employee who answered the telephone at the funeral home confirmed the report.

The funeral home said “The body was in great condition and shows no sign of head trauma,” TMZ reported.

TMZ is partly owned by AOL, part of CNN’s parent company, Time Warner.

The family’s doctor observed the autopsy, Wilchcombe told CNN’s “Larry King Live” on Monday.

The body was cremated, Wilchcombe said Monday.

He said Tuesday that a memorial service was planned for Thursday. Funeral plans have not been announced.

In a statement posted on the actor’s Web site, Travolta and Preston described Jett as “the most wonderful son that two parents could ever ask for [who] lit up the lives of everyone he encountered.”

“We are heartbroken that our time with him was so brief,” they said.

The couple also has a daughter, Ella, 8.

Jett Travolta had a developmental disability that his parents have linked to Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory disorder of the artery walls that most commonly occurs in young children, and that can lead to heart disease.

According to the American Heart Association, “About 80 percent of the people with Kawasaki disease are under age 5. Children over age 8 are rarely affected.”

“They’re just a fantastic couple, very family oriented like a lot of people in our community,” Ocala Mayor Randy Ewers, told Larry King. “We’re very sad about the unfortunate events for one of our community members … they’re part of the community.”

Neighbor Jacob Urbowicz described the actor as “just one of us.”

“He may be famous, but he’s just one of us here in the neighborhood. You know, we see the kids, and they see our kids. We’re all one family here, you know. It’s just not something that’s supposed to happen,” Urbowicz told CNN affiliate WESH-TV.

Urbowicz said he remembers Jett Travolta as a happy teenager, the television station reported.

It is U2's first release since 2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb

No Line On The Horizon is the group’s 12th studio album and their first since 2004′s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

It was originally expected to be released by the end of 2008, but the band announced in September they would continue to write more songs.

The album will be released in the UK on 2 March, with its debut in North America coming a day later.

‘Versions and incarnations’

The band began work on the album a couple of years ago with US producer Rick Rubin, who is best known for working with Run DMC, Johnny Cash, Beastie Boys, and Red Hot Chili Peppers.

However, these initial sessions were eventually shelved.

“We actually laid all that stuff to one side,” guitarist The Edge told Mojo magazine last month. “None of the Rick material went into this project. Everything has been written subsequently.”

However, the star added the band will “get back to the material we started with Rick at some point”.

Long-time collaborators Brian Eno and Danny Lanois were drafted in, recording in Morocco, New York, London and the bands own studio in Dublin.

When asked what the album sounds like The Edge said: “It’s a record of two halves. One half is songs that came virtually fully-formed out of sessions we did with Brian and Danny.

“Then the other half is material we’ve kicked around a while and went through the usual cycle of versions and incarnations.

“It sounds like a U2 album but it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done before and it doesn’t really sound like anything that’s happening at the moment.”

The group’s last record sold more than nine million copies worldwide, and picked up eight Grammy awards, including album of the year and best rock song for lead single Vertigo.

From left: LOUIS VUITTON An ostrich-front top with an obi wrap, over a metallic skirt; LANVIN A draped one-shoulder dress in a leopard print; JOHN GALLIANO An evening dress in draped silk jersey.

“Remember,” Mr. Jacobs said, poking his head between two girls in the line, “this is a city where even the meter readers wear high heels.” The show was slightly delayed for the arrival of Mr. Jacobs’s boss, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

But in a way, seeing the models in the line told a lot about the intensity of Mr. Jacobs’s affection for Paris, and how expressive he has become as a designer. Make it layered, make it visual, make it personal. The backbone of the collection was the structured flirty jacket — emblematic of Paris fashion. The short skirts were a collage of materials and textures. An Asian influence was marked by metallic obi belts. Ostrich feather skirts, leopard-pattern bags and decoratively beaded shoes evoked Africa.

The spirit of Yves Saint Laurent? Not quite. If anything, Mr. Jacobs’s Vuitton show was a spoof on the elements we think of as quintessentially French, like the chic jacket, the polka-dot pajama and the poodle hairdo. But in spite of the sentiment of the Édith Piaf soundtrack, the modernity of the show ultimately rested on how visual the clothes were.

Miuccia Prada closed the Paris spring shows with a fine Miu Miu collection that also combined textures — burlap and satin — in predominantly slim dresses that had detachable half skirts. She also showed Greco-Roman prints, but the use of paint-splashed burlap was most intriguing.

In his show, Alber Elbaz caught the flavor for the exotic, with lush colors and leopard prints. Africa has been a potent theme of the collections, with Azzedine Alaïa making the most exuberant display in raffia and python.

So one of the strangest Paris seasons ended, made confusing by deepening economic worries, bouts of real creativity and the feeling that, as hard as some designers worked, retailers will have to work even harder next spring to get customers to come into the stores just for a look.

ALEXANDER MCQUEEN A minidress constructed from a computer-digitized print.

A number of collections should be celebrated. Mr. Elbaz’s best dresses had a nonchalant style of draping; hardly D.I.Y., but if you’re wearing a one-shoulder dress in fireball-orange silk with a puff of fabric grazing your face and arm, the effect should be slightly unserious. Many of the outfits were in taffeta, cloqué and duchess silk, and Mr. Elbaz gave them volume in simple ways — and sometimes with an interior band of grosgrain to hold things in place — and some dresses were in fact a top and a skirt. He cut the tops long so they could also be worn in a different proportion with pants, and he twisted the fabric slightly so the shape wouldn’t look flat and boring.

What looked new were slim pants with tacked-down pleats that gave shape to the waist; there was no actual waistband. Full sleeves, set into the shoulders of jewel-neck cloqué blouses, created a very narrow line — like a twig, which of course you may not be.

But you can play. The collection was, finally, in that spirit — the stilettos joyfully blitzed with tacky beads, a bone silk dress embroidered with stones in an abstract leopard pattern.

AZZEDINE ALAïA Strappy python stilettos with bells attached.

Alexander McQueen used computer images of crushed crystals, wood grains, animals, human skeletons and the iron grid of the Eiffel Tower as the basis for dazzling digitalized prints on silk jersey. The palette includes smoky grays, delphinium blues and vibrant parrot colors that look fractured by a prism. All the dress and jacket shapes were within the realm of the imagination, especially the fluttery dresses, and then you had the particular flavor of the engineered prints.

Mr. McQueen said his show was inspired by Darwinism and the Industrial Revolution, among other world-shaping forces. That gave him the historical ground for his romantic tailoring, leather corset belts, and molded showpiece dresses (covered with pounds of crystals and duly translated into more wearable dresses in the showroom). It’s just a good thing that he managed to pull out the prints from all that antiquity.

Backstage, in his fully furnished dressing room, John Galliano said that his vividly colored collection was inspired by James Gillray, an 18th-century caricaturist.

I’m sure my eyes glazed over. “I’ll Google him,” I said.

AZZEDINE ALAïA A cropped top and skirt from a collection inspired by Africa.

Here is a passage from the Tate Museum site: “Gillray’s targets range from lecherous men to amateur actors and musicians, and include the passion for art collecting as well as sex and gambling; all are exposed with great wit and graphic invention but also unrelenting cruelty.”

You could have blown me over with a Chanel feather: it sounded just like the fashion world, especially the bit about a “passion for art collecting.” Mr. Galliano indeed captured Gillray’s distinctly satirical palette of sunny yellows, baby and rosy pinks, and aristocratic blues — ideal for making light of pompous things. Under Bo Peep bonnets and sleeping caps made extreme by the milliner Stephen Jones, Mr. Galliano presented clothes that were light and pretty in the best sense.

No need to analyze a draped dress in pink silk jersey with drawstrings at the waist and hem. It fell on the body in a flattering way and looked fresh and new. The same was true of puffy blouses in crisp cotton or silk that spilled off one shoulder, and looked gentle and inviting compared with some of the ugly and overwrought clothes we’ve seen in the last two weeks.

CHLOé Scalloped shorts and a matching tailored jacket.

There was probably not a better evening dress anywhere in Paris (well, maybe with the exception of Chanel and Alaïa) than a square-neck gown in cream silk jersey with a lightly draped bodice, soft sleeves and a long sleek skirt. A number of Mr. Galliano’s dresses were quite transparent, requiring a slip and a decent body, but the real measure of this wonderful show was how unfussy and free it was.

Chloé’s new designer, Hannah MacGibbon, made a fair start, offering sundresses with ruffled crisscrossed backs, a sharp-shouldered jumpsuit in khaki cotton, and a cool, one-shoulder dress in nutmeg cotton with side lacing. Sandals were flat (black straps, say, with a Kelly green sole). Scalloping (around hems and dinosaur-style down the sleeves of a bitter-lemon coat) looked cute in small doses. No doubt Ms. MacGibbon, who worked at the house once before under Phoebe Philo, will hear from plenty of critics about her very large trousers, and look back upon them critically herself and feed her eye from smaller plates.

Reeves' character arrives on Earth in a luminous, orbiting sphere

Actor Keanu Reeves was in London this week to promote The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of the 1951 science-fiction classic.

Best known for his roles in Speed, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure and the Matrix trilogy, actor Keanu Reeves combines boyish good looks with a Zen-like, almost spiritual calm.

The latter characteristic certainly suits his latest role – that of an alien visitor, Klaatu, who arrives on Earth to warn of an impending global apocalypse.

There is another side to the 44-year-old, however, as journalists at a press conference in London discovered this week.

Though generally good-humoured, his occasionally brusque responses revealed him to be a man who does not suffer fools – or impertinent reporters – gladly.

He was less than impressed, for example, when the moderator of the press conference – who was sitting beside Reeves – accepted a glass of water the actor had intended for the film’s director, Scott Derrickson.

Nor did he seem overly pleased when a reporter asked him to prove his environmental credentials by citing the last “green” thing he’d done.

“Hallelujah!” he exclaimed when asked by the BBC News website to comment on the film’s use of overt Christian symbolism. “What do you think?”

On other subjects, though, he was more loquacious – among them his pleasure at having erstwhile Monty Python member John Cleese as a co-star.

‘Generous’

“Meeting him was fantastic,” he said of Cleese, who plays a scientist who tries to convince Klaatu that humanity is worth saving. “He’s a lovely, generous man.

“Everyone on set was so excited when he came in. It was great to spend a couple of days with him.”  Reeves was also eager to praise Will Smith’s 10-year-old son Jaden, who plays a young boy who comes into contact with the extra-terrestrial.

“He’s a good kid, very professional,” he revealed. “He had a lot of tough scenes that would be a challenge for any actor.”

During the course of the film the alien Klaatu takes on human form

For Reeves himself, the challenge was charting Klaatu’s progression from cerebral, emotionless outsider to a more compassionate, sensitive being.

“The story went from him being an alien looking at humanity to him becoming human himself,” he explained.

“It’s about the decisions and sacrifices he makes on his journey from being separate to becoming whole.”

Asked what appealed about the project, the actor said he “thought it would be fun playing an alien”.

In addition, though, the film offered the opportunity to comment on current environmental issues and anxieties.

‘Crossroads’

Released during the Cold War, Robert Wise’s original film offered a clear allegory for the escalating tensions between the US and the Soviet Union.

“Your choice is simple,” warned Michael Rennie’s Klaatu at the end of the movie.  “Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration.”

In Derrickson’s version, however, the threat to mankind is not a military one but the damage done to the Earth’s fragile ecology.

“I liked the idea of telling the same story but updating it to [address] different social issues,” said the American filmmaker.

During the course of the film the alien Klaatu takes on human form

“The earth being at a crisis point, a crossroads – as a story I thought it was a good place to start,” agreed Reeves.

“As a species we can be pretty warm and fuzzy,” the actor continued when asked what he felt was mankind’s saving grace.

It is left to Derrickson, though, to explain why a remake of a 57-year-old film makes sense today.

“I don’t think it’s a message movie that’s telling anyone how to live,” he told reporters. “It’s more an expression of what I see happening.

“We’ve made some bad decisions, but people seem to be recognising that and reckoning with it.

“We’re trying to figure out what to do about it and what hard choices we have to make to prevent further destructiveness.

“That’s a part of human nature that’s very admirable, that’s worth celebrating and having some optimism about.”

The Day the Earth Stood Still is out in the U.S. on 12 December.

Swayze attended the Stand Up To Cancer event in September

Actor Patrick Swayze has denied US tabloid reports that he is close to death, calling allegations “shoddy and reckless reporting”.

The 56-year-old star said reports that he is “on his last legs and saying goodbye to my tearful family” were “lies and false information”.

Swayze, who has been filming a US TV drama, said his pancreatic cancer was “a battle, but so far I’m winning”.

He was diagnosed with the disease in March and had rigorous treatment.

In a statement to People magazine, the actor called newspaper stories “the only thorn in my side”, and said he was home for the Christmas holidays after filming police series The Beast.

‘Lucky few’

US tabloid The National Enquirer reported that Swayze’s cancer had spread to his liver.

The Globe ran a photo of the Dirty Dancing star on its front page with the headline “Swayze Deathbed Secret!”

Some US newspapers initially reported that Swayze had weeks to live when his diagnosis became public in March.

But he returned to work and was able to complete 12-hour days due to his treatment programme.

Swayze said that he was one of the “lucky few” that responds to treatment for the illness.

But he added: “Pancreatic cancer is an aggressive disease and from the moment I was diagnosed, I knew I was in for the fight of my life.”

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most virulent forms of cancer which medicals experts say has a 5% five-year survival rate.

Slumdog Millionaire sees a young boy enter Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

A movie about a poor Indian boy who wins a game show fortune has taken three prizes, including best film, at the British Independent Film Awards.

Slumdog Millionaire, which is not out in the UK until January, also won best director for Danny Boyle and best newcomer for 18-year-old Dev Patel.

Political drama Hunger also took three prizes, with Michael Fassbender named best actor for playing Bobby Sands.

Harry Potter star David Thewlis picked up an outstanding contribution prize.

The 45-year-old, who plays Remus Lupin in the wizarding franchise, is also known for his roles in Mike Leigh’s Naked and Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven. His co-star in concentration camp drama The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, Vera Farmiga, took home the best actress award from the London ceremony. Hitman comedy In Bruges, which had received seven nominations, only picked up one trophy – for best screenplay.

Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, the tale of a North London schoolteacher whose optimism tends to exasperate those around her, scooped two prizes.

Eddie Marsan took best supporting actor for his role as Scott, a driving instructor with rage issues. Alexis Zegerman was named best supporting actress as the heroine’s long-suffering flatmate, Zoe.

Michael Sheen, who plays David Frost in the film adaptation of Frost/Nixon, was honoured with the Variety Award for bringing global recognition to the British film industry.

Best foreign film went to political animation Waltz With Bashir,

However, two of the ceremony’s highest-profile nominees, Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes failed to win awards.

Knightley had received a best actress nod for her role in The Duchess, while Fiennes, who is currently appearing at the National Theatre in Oedipus, was up for best supporting actor in both The Duchess and In Bruges.

This year’s jury included Atonement director Joe Wright, photographer Rankin and the actress Anne Marie Duff.

Johanna von Fischer and Tessa Collinson, co-directors of the awards said it had been a “stellar year” for independent film in Britain.

The prizes for Slumdog Millionaire will almost certainly boost Oscar buzz for the film, which has already won the influential People’s Choice Award at the Toronto Film Festival.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 26-year-old wore hot pants, fishnet tights and a black top hat as she took to the stage with new single Womanizer.

She then collected her Bambi award from designer Karl Lagerfeld, who said she had come back “not only as a phoenix but as a bird of paradise.”

Her appearance at the Offenburg event comes ahead of her performance on Saturday’s edition of The X Factor.

Her latest album, Circus, is released in the UK on Monday, one day ahead of the singer’s 27th birthday.

Chart-topping singer Leona Lewis was among the other winners at Thursday’s ceremony, picking up the Shooting Star prize.

Hollywood stars Meg Ryan and Keanu Reeves were also honoured at the awards, which have been bestowed by the Hubert Burda Media group since 1948.

The annual ceremony, it said, “honours people who have especially moved and elated the German audience with their vision and creativity”.

Last year’s event in Dusseldorf saw Tom Cruise, Sophia Loren and Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria Parker walk away with distinctive deer-shaped statuettes.

Earlier this week it was confirmed Spears will play two concerts in London next June as part of her forthcoming world tour.

Kurkova last weekend

Victoria’s Secret angel Karolina Kurkova surprised onlookers with her almost invisible bellybutton at last week’s show in Miami, but there is an explanation.
She had an operation when she was an infant,” her rep told the Daily News. “It’s a fact and just thank God she’s healthy.”

The mystery of her strangely smooth tummy surfaced again as the Czech supermodel strutted her stuff on the runway in Miami two weeks ago.

There was simply an indentation where the center “button” should have been.

And don’t be fooled by the glossy magazine spread: though the voluptuous blond seems to have a perfect button in the pages of magazines and catalogs, industry sources have revealed that is usually the result of photo retouching.

So what belly button condition could baby Kurkova have had?

Doctors say it was likely an umbilical hernia.

“It does look like [she may have had] an umbilical hernia as a child that was either fixed or not fixed, which can distort the belly button,” said Dr. Matthew Schulman, a plastic surgeon at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Medical Center.

Kurkova last weekend

At last year's show

At last year

Williams is jovial and chatty, until the conversation turns to Heath. You can see it’s still difficult for her to talk about him, and she hasn’t done so publicly until now. The first time Ledger’s name comes up, she bursts into tears. “It’s so sad,” Williams says. When she’s asked about how she’s been doing in the past year, she’s silent for a very long time. “I guess it’s always changing,” she says. There’s another pause. “What else can I say?” Her voice is breathy and fragile, and she takes a few gulps of air. “I just wake up each day in a slightly different place–grief is like a moving river, so that’s what I mean by ‘it’s always changing’.” She stops again. “It’s a strange thing to say”–her words unravel slowly, her eyes tear up–”because I’m at heart an optimistic person, but I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It’s just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone. In some ways it gets worse. That’s what I would say.”
As she walks back to her car, Williams spots an SUV parked on the side of the road. Is it the paparazzi? No, but her heart still sinks at the thought. The paparazzi are one topic that gets her so riled up, she spits out curse words. “It burns a fire inside of me, the s— that I’ve seen people do to get at me or my daughter,” she says. “I won’t forget it, and I won’t support it. I don’t want my daughter growing up feeling spied on or threatened.”

A scene from Martha Clarke’s “Garden of Earthly Delights.”

The gam parade at Radio City Music Hall is rolling once again, but this season the Rockettes have some pretty fierce competition in making lively use of the appendages most of us bipeds employ for more mundane purposes. The undulating forest of limbs in Martha Clarke’s celebrated “Garden of Earthly Delights” may not have the pop appeal of those high kickers uptown, but this singular work of dance theater is without doubt one of the most eerily hypnotic spectacles of flesh in motion ever put on a New York stage.

Ms. Clarke’s theatrical meditation on the famous triptych by Hieronymus Bosch was originally staged in 1984 and reopened at the Minetta Lane Theater in 1987. The new production that opened at the same theater on Wednesday night makes for a kind of homecoming.

Festive it is not, although the work is shot through with moments of strange, startling beauty. Ms. Clarke’s danced drama of the fleeting joys and eternal agonies of the body and the spirit presents man’s journey from innocence to experience as a frenzied trek from darkness to darkness, with the heated mystery of human connection as the primary source of light.

The Bosch painting, generally dated to 1503-4, depicts a panorama of human pleasure and suffering in three linked panels. It would take a Broadway-size budget and perhaps the entire apparatus of the Disney magic-making machinery to recreate the wild cornucopia of frolicking men, women, animals, fruits and flowers depicted in the central panel of this endlessly weird, endlessly rich work of art. And the lurid horrors of its vision of hell, to the right of the garden party, would tax the ingenuity of the creators of today’s blood-soaked video games. (The painting is at the Prado in Madrid.)

Ms. Clarke, who conceived, directed and choreographed the show, distills the painting’s roiling, boiling imagery with an inspired economy, employing a cast of 11 dancers clad in near-transparent, flesh-colored bodysuits (and later simple medieval costumes); three musicians playing a rhythmic, haunting score by Richard Peaslee; a few tree stumps and spindly, grotesque-looking branches; a little smoke; and some shards of sculptural lighting. (Set and lighting design are by Christopher Akerlind.) Ms. Clarke also uses a single special effect: harnesses for the passages in which the performers take flight, echoing the surreal spatial relationships in the painting.

While making few attempts at pictorial mimicry, Ms. Clarke sacrifices little of the painting’s mystery. Scholars still argue over Bosch’s elusive point of view. Are the men and women depicted in a dizzying variety of sexual behaviors in the central panel joyously indulging in the freedom Adam and Eve won at such a steep price? Or are they victims of agonizing lusts that were let loose in the human bloodstream when Eve took that unseemly bite of the forbidden fruit?

The torments of hell, depicted with the grisly exuberance that made Bosch so very singular a painter, would seem to suggest that fun definitely has its price, that the chain of experience that began back in paradise with Adam’s hungry gaze and Eve’s demure self-exposure ultimately will lead to fetters and lashes for just about everybody.

As Ms. Clarke’s theatrical gloss on the painting begins, all you see are limbs in motion as tawny-colored creatures emerge from a primordial darkness to creep slowly across the stage. They are men and women obviously, but as they walk delicately on their toes and fingertips, they seem to be in inchoate form, oversize embryos that haven’t yet hatched heads. They look like neckless giraffes, stately and elegant but without recognizable human form or individual identity.

Such moments of disconcerting confusion come and go quickly in “Garden of Earthly Delights.” Was that an act of violence or an act of love I just witnessed? Is that ecstasy or fear playing across the features of that woman? There are moments of humor that slide suddenly into the macabre and moments of horror that are infused with a disarming gracefulness. Pervading all is a dance maker’s intuitive sense of finding physical actions to express the lusts, fears and foibles of human experience.

The performance is nominally divided into three sections, echoing the three panels in the painting. “Paradise” depicts Adam (Whitney V. Hunter) and Eve (Sophie Bortolussi) before the Fall, innocent as they walk together in perfect harmony, her feet gracefully placed atop his. When the fatal bite is taken from a bright green apple — the set’s only pop of color — the dancers onstage suddenly curl into self-conscious slouches and crawl into the corners. Their hands move toward their crotches as if by instinct, to hide the hot source of their shame.

The refinement of corruption in the “Seven Deadly Sins” section (inspired in part by another Bosch painting) corresponds with a burst of ecclesiastical sound from the musicians — Wayne Hankin on wind instruments, Egil Rostad on cello, Arthur Solari on percussion — who are attired in monks’ robes and occasionally interact with the other performers. The dancers don simple linen clothing to enact the failings of an early civilization, in vignettes that depict the burning drives of lust, greed, sloth and the rest in sometimes vulgarly comic, sometimes grimly cruel tableaus.

Social complicity in acts of brutality is underscored by having the rest of the cast look on with cool diffidence at the carnival of horrors around them. Perhaps the most gasp-inducing image is that of a Christ-like figure being burned at the stake, with Mr. Akerlind’s flickering lighting and a small pile of twigs the only props needed to evoke an unforgettably harrowing image.

With Billy Elliot and Mary Poppins and various characters in the Metropolitan Opera’s new production of “The Damnation of Faust” hoisted skyward in New York theaters these days, Ms. Clarke’s extensive use of aerial work is undoubtedly not as fresh or exciting as it was in the 1980s, before Cirque du Soleil had become a ubiquitous global brand.

But flight gives the torments of the last section, evoking hell, an extra edge of fantastical horror. The darkness above the stage fills with figures twisting, spinning or simply hanging like slabs of meat in the cosmic darkness. At several points a sufferer is flung beyond the boundary of the stage to spin above the audience. In the tight confines of the Minetta Lane Theater, the effect is seriously spine chilling. Ms. Clarke and her performers create a convincingly fiery vision of hell, and suddenly it’s right in your lap.

GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

Conceived, directed and choreographed by Martha Clarke, based on the 1503-4 triptych by Hieronymus Bosch; music by Richard Peaslee; sets and lighting by Christopher Akerlind; costumes by Jane Greenwood; sound by One Dream; flying by Foy; flying consultant, David Hale; production stage manager, Jennifer Rae Moore; production manager, Andrew Martini; general manager, Two Step Productions. A Two River Theater Company production, presented by Rhoda Herrick, in association with David Grausman and Barbara Foy. At the Minetta Lane Theater, 18 Minetta Lane, Greenwich Village; (212) 307-4100. Through Jan. 18. Running time: 1 hour 15 minutes.

WITH: Sophie Bortolussi, Benjamin G. Bowman, Daniel Clifton, Marjorie Folkman, General McArthur Hambrick, Whitney V. Hunter, Gabrielle Malone, Jennifer Nugent, Matt Rivera, Jenny Sandler and Isadora Wolfe. Musicians: Wayne Hankin, Egil Rostad and Arthur Solari.

On Mickey’s 80th birthday the writer, broadcaster and Mickey Mouse expert Brian Sibley explains everything you need to know about the world-famous rodent.

Fans share their Mickey Mouse tales

If you go back to the origins of Mickey Mouse and look at the characters that appeared in those early films, there were all kinds of farmyard animals – pigs, cats, dogs, goats, horses, cows and mice, and they were all a realistic size.

As the characters became more rounded and more sophisticated over the years, their animal nature regressed and they became more like people.

Mickey is a character who wears shoes, shorts and strange white gloves, he lives in a house, drives in a car and has a pet dog called Pluto. In itself, it is rather strange that a mouse has a dog as a pet.

Even if it’s a small dog, it still means Mickey is enormous for a mouse.

MICKEY THE SYMBOL

Over the years Mickey Mouse has been a symbol of different things at different times.

In the 1930s, the time of the great depression, Mickey represented something very American to do with endurance and the ability to rise above defeat.

Alongside Charlie Chaplin, he was an icon of the little man. They symbolised hope, optimism and a kind of inbred spunkiness.

In the first film, Steamboat Willie, he is rude to the authority figure, blows raspberries, thumbs his nose and is generally a little scamp.

As life improved in the 1940s, Mickey became redundant.

Disney had become the doyen of family entertainment and Mickey could no longer be the impertinent, revolutionary character.

So as Disney became more respectable, so did Mickey.

He became the MC, the compere or the circus ringmaster for a whole galaxy of characters like the irascible Donald Duck and the inept Goofy.

He became the pole of normality around which this bizarre entourage flew like satellites.

Move into the 1950s and Walt Disney started opening the first of his theme parks.

Mickey took on another role as the genial, mute host, the friendly person in a suit, welcoming people to this fantasy wonderland.

Now, in 2008, children are watching Mickey’s Clubhouse on TV with a digital Mickey Mouse, and he is rejuvenated again.

MICKEY THE ICON

Andy Warhol said that Mickey was one of his favourite images. Even the Palestinian militant group Hamas used a Mickey-like image on their children’s TV programme, spreading the message of Islamic Jihad.

It is fascinating that a character who hasn’t made many movies in the last 20 years still has worldwide fame.

Maybe it is the fact that Walt Disney himself invested so much interest in the character.

He would often say to the animators in his studio, working on full length, big-budget films: “I hope you will never forget that this was all started by a mouse.”

American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson was supposed to have said that if you build a better mouse trap the world will beat a path to your door. Disney just made a better mouse.

he 18-year-old “Hannah Montana” actor and his professional partner, Julianne Hough, were eliminated Tuesday from ABC’s popular dancing competition. The pair received a total score of 46 out of 60 from judges for their paso doble and salsa routines Monday. After viewer votes were combined with the judges’ scores, the Disney actor was dismissed.

“Oh my gosh,” a choked-up Linley said after his ouster. “I mean, words can’t even explain the true amazing, growing, learning journey that I’ve had on this show. I can’t show my appreciation anymore to Julianne. I can’t say thank you. I love her so much. This opportunity has been so amazing.”

For part of the competition, Linley was paired with professional dancer Edyta Sliwinska when Hough missed two weeks of competition because of surgery to remove her appendix. Hough rejoined Linley for Monday’s semifinal round. The pair received the judge’s lowest scores. After their paso doble routine, judge Bruno Tonioli said it was “not good enough.”

“I’m so proud of you,” Hough said to Linley before the duo took to the ballroom floor for their last dance. “I’ve had such an amazing time with you. This has probably been the biggest journey that any of these couples have had out here. I cannot wait to see what his opportunities are going to be after this show.”

The three remaining contestants — model-actress Brooke Burke, singer Lance Bass and former NFL star Warren Sapp — will compete for the show’s mirror ball trophy in next week’s finals. On Monday, the celebrities will perform two routines, including one dance set to the same music for each couple. The seventh season champion will then be crowned Tuesday.

Previously dismissed celebrities include: Olympic sprinter Maurice Greene; actresses Susan Lucci and Cloris Leachman; singer Toni Braxton; chef Rocco DiSpirito; reality TV star Kim Kardashian; actor Ted McGinley and comedian Jeffrey Ross. Greene’s fellow Olympian, volleyball player Misty May-Treanor, dropped out of the competition after rupturing a tendon.