31.   The curtain rises on a stage filled with figures silhouetted against a fiery orange background.

32.   The curtain rises, in fact, on a modern sun king, Richard Chen See, in a sleeveless bright yellow jumpsuit by Santo Loquasto.

33.   The curtain rose on a stage full of already-moving bodies at the start of the evening.

34.   The curtain will rise Tuesday on a troupe much fractured and splintered by deep philosophical differences, with no sure sense of where they will wind up.

35.   The next night, when the curtain rose, she had it down cold.

36.   Then the curtain rose again.

37.   When the curtain rises, everything that follows is an anticlimax.

38.   When the black curtain rose, moments earlier, Reeve was greeted with the bright lights of television and a standing ovation from the students.

39.   When the curtain rises, the company is seen gyrating to drum-and-bass music composed by Hahn Rowe.

40.   When the curtain finally rises, the spotlight falls on a row of military men and gray-suited functionaries seated shoulder to shoulder at a long table.