Mary Brennan welcomes the revival of a dance classic.

SSSHH! The moon is just about to rise. Stealing over the rim of the bullring, like a naughty child out to scrump forbidding apples. And yes! After years of waiting, hoping, wishing, a cherished dream is on the verge of becoming reality for thousands of dance fans. The moon - and the curtain - are about to rise, once again, on Rambert's Cruel Garden . . .

And it's not just those of us who can fish the original programmes out of our souvenir archives who feel a certain, anticipatory squeezing of the rib cage. I'd long forgotten that Michael Clark was a ''bit player'' in the 1980 performances at Glasgow's Theatre Royal . . . and that Richard Alston appeared as the sinister Inquisitor. But even if certain names had slipped from mind, the powerful and poetic impact of this piece has remained memorable: a unique experience in the realm of contemporary dance. Which is why so many enthusiasts who didn't see it first time round have said how much they wished Rambert would revive it. And now Rambert has: Cruel Garden reaches Edinburgh at the end of this month.

It's appropriate timing, forby the wave of apparent nostalgia for all things seventies. For one thing, 1998 marks the centenary of Federico Garcia Lorca's birth - the Spanish poet's life and work are at the heart of Lindsay Kemp's dramatic concept and Christopher Bruce's brilliantly atmospheric choreography. Moreover, since Bruce has a long-standing passion for Lorca's poetry - indeed it inspired another, subsequent piece of his, Night with Waning Moon - the revival could be seen as something of a personal tribute.

But bringing Cruel Garden back into the repertoire - after some 17 years - also marks an important point in Bruce's overall vision for the company he has so skilfully and single-mindedly steered back to prominence and popularity.

As Rambert's artistic director he has had to negotiate a careful balance between pushing the company forward - not just with new works of his own but by encouraging young talent from within the ranks - while maintaining a foothold in the ''heritage repertoire''. This is, after all, a company with a dynamic and significant history. Cruel Garden is a fabulous, highly-charged landmark in that history. ''It allows the company to show another side - a very dramatic side, one that is in marked contrast to the other works we do,'' says Bruce, adding that they are also touring new additions to the repertoire: a Kylian, a Cunningham, and a work by company member Didy Veldman. Across two programmes they will, he stresses, be spanning a huge canon of dance styles and each will set different challenges and display different strengths. In the process, Rambert will be keeping faith with the different

sectors of its ever-increasing audience: those who are relatively new to dance and those who hark back to the days when Christopher Bruce himself danced with the company and was, of course, the poet in Cruel Garden when it was first performed in 1977.

At the time, nothing quite like it had been seen in mainstream contemporary dance. Bruce - having been appointed associate choreographer with Rambert - approached the deliciously wayward, wantonly creative Lindsay Kemp with a proposition. To make a piece of dance theatre, with Bruce devising the choreography and Kemp, well, with Kemp adding his own special magic dust, shot through with beauty and cruelty, sensuality and innocence, blood and tears, and the sweat of hothouse flowers.

Kemp it was who fixed on Lorca as the subject: thereafter rehearsals were flooded with the heat and dust of the bullring, the hectic colours and fierce rhythms of a Spain that Kemp, and Bruce, culled from the art of Goya and Picasso, as well as from the verses of Lorca himself. The title, however, sprang from a drawing by Cocteau, where a wounded bull bleeds flowers into the sand.

They were heady days, that spring and summer of 1977. Kemp, intent on sating himself with atmosphere, decided to further his research in Benidorm, where he fetched up in jail. Keen to bond with the Spaniards, he had, apparently, dressed like a native. A native of Old Espana, Hollywood-style: complete with bright bandanna, shawl, and castanets. He hit the streets dancing and was promptly arrested. But then, Lorca had suffered for his art. Being the victim of crass oppression, brutally murdered, even, for his beliefs and his way of life. This, surely, was bonding beyond the grave!

Now, as then, the Rambert dancers found themselves being propelled in directions that were utterly strange. Bruce chuckles as he thinks of the whirlwind impact Kemp had on the present company when he returned to help stage the revival. So nothing has changed, there, after 21 years. What has changed, of course, is the company line-up. It's quite likely some of the current dancers could scarcely toddle when Bruce's Poet was thrilling audiences with the lissome grace, the quick and quirky details of a truly unforgettable, uplifting performance. A whole new generation has joined the box office queues as well - yet the response is, apparently, akin to that rapturous outpouring of 20 years ago. ''There's still nothing else like it in any other repertoire,'' says Bruce. ''The magic still works.''

n Rambert Dance Company are at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre with a triple bill on May 27-28. Cruel Garden is performed on May 29-30.