Twenty tours for Lyon.

IF YOU catch Yorgos Loukos at home in Jean Nouvel's stunning, glass-encased opera house in the center of France's second largest city, consider yourself very lucky to find him at home. Loukos' frequent flyer miles might underwrite a trip to the moon and back. He's always questing after the next big thing. "Look, I can be in Brussels in two hours," he says. "There are forty-five dance companies there; forty-two may be terrible, but you never know about the other three."

No surprise that the peripatetic, 31-member Lyon Opera Ballet, which the Athens-born ex-dancer has directed since 1991, has become a unique institution with a dazzling repertoire. It tours a substantial sixteen weeks a year and performs only ten weeks annually at home. Amid all the other milestones the dance world is celebrating in 2004, the company's eight-city, tour to the United States this month (the second of the year) will be the organization's twentieth to this country. The visit will herald, too, the twentieth anniversary of director Loukos' arrival in Lyon, where he began as ballet master and assistant to American experimental theater director Robert Wilson.

From the Lyon Opera Ballet, American audiences have come to expect the unexpected--works by the major names as well as discoveries in the European dance field, a healthy diet of leading American choreographers, and dancing which, although classically based, glows with a sharp, contemporary edge. The works that will be presented stateside this month and next--Jiri Kylian's Symphony of Psalms, Un Ballo and Petite Mort; Nacho Duato's Jardi Tancat; William Forsythe's Duo and Second Detail; and Critical Mass, a 1999 duet by rising British choreographer Russell Maliphant--epitomize the company's vaunted, idiosyncratic fare.

The strenuous tour regimen, says Loukos, was born out of necessity. "We are part of an opera house. They must do ten opera productions a year, and they need lots more time for stage rehearsals than we do. So, we can't get in. Sure, I wish we were like the Paris Opera, which can do Swan Lake and Wozzeck the same night in different theaters."

What pleases Loukos most about his tenure? "We're open-minded and curious. We are the only European company that has such a strong relationship with American choreographers. We have had sixteen come here over the years. Bill T. Jones was in residence for four years, and we now have a permanent relationship with Trisha Brown. The year after next, she will do a premiere for us."

It takes no effort to coax from Loukos a list of the other choreographers whose works have been produced (and many commissioned) by Lyon. It's a hall of fame collection: Stephen Petronio, Ralph Lemon, John Jasperse, Susan Marshall, Lucinda Childs, Sarah Michelson, Karole Armitage, Angelin Preljocaj, and Maguy Marin (whose Cinderella in doll masks has proven the company's great international hit).

None of this bounty is lost on American audiences. "They understand more. Their sense of humor is greater than Europeans and they are not afraid to show their appreciation," Loukos says.

But the nature of touring has changed dramatically over the past two decades. "It was busier before the Iraq war, and money is getting tight, even in Europe. Still," notes Loukos, "the American venues where we perform are getting more sophisticated, and their directors are becoming more discriminating. They don't necessarily trust what the giant booking agencies are promoting. Before signing on, they want to see the companies for themselves, they're also curious about the repertoire. Overall, I'm optimistic."