BEIJING - The gate to the theater complex opened only to those in possession of a printed invitation to the event within: a dress rehearsal for a dance adaptation of “Jin Ping Mei,” or “The Golden Lotus.”

The veil of caution that surrounded the rehearsal is par for the course with any adaptation of “Jin Ping Mei,” a Ming dynasty novel usually prefaced with adjectives like “pornographic” and “notorious.” It has been banned in China because of its explicit sex by successive governments, starting with the Kangxi Emperor in 1687.

Creating a production that cannot be performed in China proper (the piece had its premiere in March at the Hong Kong Arts Festival, which commissioned it) might seem a questionable strategy for the Beijing Dance Theater, a fledgling private company that depends on sponsorship.

It is, however, in keeping with the fierce sense of artistic freedom of the troupe’s director, Wang Yuanyuan, and her strong belief in the company’s obligation to make socially relevant works.

“ ‘Jin Ping Mei’ was written in the Ming dynasty, in a rotten society,” Ms. Wang said. “But the social phenomenon is the same now. People will do anything for money and they want everything quickly.”

At the center of “Jin Ping Mei” is the antihero, the insatiable and corrupt Ximen Qing.

When a lone woman - the equally infamous Pan Jinlian - passes by and stops to watch an orgy he is staging, she catches Ximen’s attention. He chases her home, and they dance a scene of passionate lovemaking, with Pan refusing to stop even when her benighted husband, the dwarf Wu Dalang, appears at the window. When the enraged Wu enters his home, the couple murder him, and Pan runs off to become Ximen’s fifth (but not final) wife, setting the stage for a tale of familial intrigue and debauchery that has enthralled readers for centuries.

Indeed, though “Jin Ping Mei” is set in the commercially prosperous Northern Song dynasty, it has been viewed as a richly embroidered critique of contemporary corruption and greed since it first appeared around 1595.

Its author used a pen name - the Scoffing Scholar of Lanling - and his true identity is unknown. Tradition attributes the work to the Confucian scholar Wang Shicheng, who is said to have dashed off the 1,600-page novel in six weeks to get revenge on the decadent Yen Shifan, the son of the man he blamed for his father’s death.

Wang Shicheng created the character of Ximen Qing to satirize Yen, and then sent him the manuscript as a gift, after rubbing grains of poison into the corner of each page so that Yen would slowly ingest them when he wet his finger in his mouth to turn the pages. Yen is said to have read voraciously to the end ? and then dropped dead.

“If you are only seeking money, you will take the wrong road and you will never return,” Ms. Wang said. “You have to maintain your purity. I will do whatever I need to preserve my own integrity.”