LESLEY Ann Eden has never been one for the simple life.

The ever-enthusiastic York guru of well being, health, fitness and artistic expression has added a new post to her myriad challenges. As director of Pinnacle Performing and Expressive Arts in Haywards Heath, she must spend Wednesday to Friday each week in West Sussex, before taking the five-hour journey north to run classes at her York School of Dance and Drama in York, now in its 27th year.

On top of all that, she has been doing a masters degree and is now undertaking a doctorate, and is in the last stages of preparation for her newly choreographed interpretation of Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty: The Real Myth will be performed tomorrow afternoon and evening at the Grand Opera House, York, in a "New Choreo-Drama for Today's Young People" featuring performers with experience ranging from six months to adult professional level.

Dance students from the York School of Dance and Drama will be joined by summer-school students from Burleigh College, Loughborough, Hind Leys, Shepshed, and Heath School, Cheshire.

"There'll be 100 children involved, and they only came together for the first time on Sunday at the dress rehearsal but that's part of the excitement," says Lesley. "They won't have a lot of experience together but they will have a dance experience they'll not forget!"

Lesley thrives on the adrenaline rush. "The last time I saw the children from the summer school was in November, so you can imagine it's a huge choreographic effort to get them all together but that's what Sunday's rehearsal was all about. Just the one day. That's all they've got together till show time!"

How come the children from Loughborough, Shepshed and Cheshire are taking part? "I taught them at master classes at Playa D'Oro - the Beach of Gold on the Costa Brava - last summer and they've already booked again for next summer! In fact I'm probably better known out there in Spain than here."

Lead roles will go to Indian dancer Zubin Surty as The Storyteller and Belgian principal dancer Gilles Polet as the Prince.

"I've danced with Zubin before and he introduced me to Gilles, so we've worked together since then," says Lesley, who will herself be dancing in the show. "When you're doing a doctorate, you've really got to show you're up for it!"

Lesley prides herself on being innovative, and in Sleeping Beauty: The Real Myth that will stretch to both style and content.

Style first. "I was the first choreographer to bring Bollywood dance to the North, and so there's a big Indian influence in this work, and we also take stick fighting from the Burmese technique of teaching soldiers lightness of foot movement," she says.

"On top of that, for my MA I had to create my own vocabulary of movement: if you're at the level of dance you have to have something inside you that's unique so I invented Junction Jazz, which is a fusion of jazz dance styles.

"What makes this show different is that all the children are being taught in that style, and my strong influence in this is rhythm. All of them, even the four year olds, are given drum sticks as part of their training and all of them will drum in this production."

So much for the style, what about the content: why is Lesley is calling the show Sleeping Beauty: The Real Myth?

"Sleeping Beauty was written by the Brothers Grimm as a preparation for adulthood, for girls preparing for their first menstrual cycle, with the symbolic pricking of the finger and the issue of a curse.

"I've changed the 'kissing-awake' scene to Sleeping Beauty and the Prince expressing joint consent. A girl should be able to give herself in love rather than just being kissed awake," reasons Lesley. "So I'm re-writing a beloved myth and making it more accessible to young people today.

"In my show, the pricking of the finger is not a symbol of death but a celebration of life, as it is in African culture, where a girl is considered to come into adulthood when she starts her periods."

All these strands of thought and movement will come together at the Grand Opera House tomorrow. Whatever the result, the show should be fascinating. "It will be very exciting," promises Lesley.

Sleeping Beauty: The Real Myth, Grand Opera House, York, January 18, 2.30pm, 7.30pm. Tickets: £7 to £9; ring 01904 671818.

Updated: 09:57 Friday, January 17, 2003