Their choregraphy has often been compared to the dark, abrupt style of Francis Bacon's paintings. Known for their intense and dramatic pieces, l'Esquisse ("Sketch" in English), one of France's leading modern dance companies, is in Moscow this week to present a series of films and performances.


Dancers and choreographers Jo‘lle Bouvier and R?gis Obadia, who founded L'Esquisse in 1980, will perform their best known work, "Welcome to Paradise," and show their four acclaimed short films, made since 1987 and based on their choreography.


Sometimes compared to German avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch for their theatrical accents and use of strong visual images, the two French artists say they cannot be classified as belonging to any particular school of dance.


Their choreography is emotionally charged and full of strong sexual tension, and often features a couple -- the man and the woman alternately attracted or repulsed by each other, assaulting, then avoiding the other.


"Welcome to Paradise," danced by Bouvier and Obadia and created on the theme of a couple's metamorphoses, is inspired by American films of Tennessee Willliams dramas. Playing on the contrast of black and white -- black costumes and white carnations, a dark stage and clouds of white talcum -- and set to snippets from operas and bits of movie soundtracks, "Welcome to Paradise" has the ambience of a film noir, though it does not actually narrate a plot, but instead portrays emotions.


Along with "Welcome to Paradise" l'Esquisse's performances at the Vakhtangov Theater will include showings of the films "The Bedroom" and "The Embrace." Both are in black and white and have a dream-like quality, the first unfolding in a closed room with women sitting in chairs attached to one wall, the second chronicling the slow-motion embraces and partings of a couple.


These two films and two others -- "The Wedding" and "The Lamp" -- were presented at Dom Kino this week before an audience of dance professionals. The films have gained international notice, "The Wedding" being nominated in 1991 at the Cannes festival in the short-film category.


"Cinema makes it possible, through the image, to look for a new way to look at the body that can be approached in a much more intimate way. We can give the body possibilities that it does not have in reality," Bouvier and Obadia state in the introduction to their picture book on l'Esquisse, published by their own production-publishing house and titled "Angle d'ailes" -- "The Angle of Wings."


Though the pair themselves say they feel equally at home in choreography and cinema, it is their choreographic work with which Bouvier and Obadia, now in their mid-thirties, have built their reputation in France. The event that showed they had truly arrived took place in 1993, when they performed their piece "Plein Soleil" at the Paris Opera.


Now based west of Paris in Angers, where they direct the National Center of Contemporary Dance, they often perform abroad, and have toured 28 countries including India, Japan and the United States. Often their programs are pas de deux in which only they appear, but they also occasionally invite seven other dancers to perform with them.


L'Esquisse is one of several modern dance companies that have come to Moscow this year from France, where the genre witnessed an explosion in the 1980s. L'Esquisse follows artists Karine Saporta, Claude Brumachon and Prele Jocaj. Three more French companies are expected in Moscow in 1995: Christine Bastin and her company La Folia in February, the Ballet Atlantique, R?gine Chopinot's company in June (performing "Le Saut de l'Ange"), and Mathilde Monnier in October. The appearances are being sponsored by France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in some cases co-sponsored by Moscow's Theater of Nations, which is dedicated to introducing new forms to a country where the creative exploration of modern dance was long discouraged and classical ballet reigned supreme.


Performances of L'Esquisse are Thursday and Friday at 7 P.M. at the Vakhtangov Theater, at 26 Stary Arbat. For information, call: 915-7974 or 202-3244. Nearest metro: Arbatskaya or Smolenskaya.