Nine members of the Scottish Dance Theatre company take to the stage to dance. They enter individually, wearing string-ribboned costumes, evocative of lacing on seventeenth century costume, corsets or straitjackets. Each thrashes about in a light spray of top-lit smoke. They form four pairs, with one isolated male dancer set apart from the rest. The themes unfold restriction, union, binding, bonding, connection and isolation interpreted in movement which draws on a mix of classical and contemporary dance techniques with a nod in the direction of acrobatics and Latin American dance. The initial jerky, whirly movements speak of Attention Deficit Disorder. The spins have none of the spiritual quality of whirling dervishes to them, the quality of insanity they evoke has none of the extreme insanity of demonic or shamanic dance.The dancers exhibit a moving tenderness in the quality of their movements, and their distant, withdrawn facial expressions suit the piece. Consciously, much is made of the contrast between thrashing, pulsating movements, and standing erect, but restless and panting. Unconsciously, involuntary hand pulses show telling signs of tension amongst the performers. The ensemble numbers are the most effective, apart from one section which has the dancers bouncing up and down in different combinations in time to the music. A discrepancy between dancers of putting the preparation or the leap on the beat made for an uneven ensemble where the jumps were evidently meant to be executed in tandem. The soundtrack was inconsistent most of the pieces being pseudo-baroque, with the exception of a bit of salsa music. This presented an opportunity for the choreographer to explore an interesting 4-some combination which worked very effectively and the experience was all the more effective for having the music and dance at their most coordinated.There is a pause in the music, the dancers go on whirling, the music changes the dancers still whirl, then discover the musics changed. This emphasis on the dancers inner soundworld being at odds with the soundtrack emphasises the feeling of madness which grows, until at the end of the piece, escape is found by releasing the ties which bind in terms of costume in favour of an exploration of union in pairs which look either dependent or co-dependent, with dancers exploring different aspects of body balance, trust, physical support and dependency. The piece is a stalwart of the companys repertoire and - apart from some serious wobbling in solo numbers and extreme pliés - is well executed, but on the whole, the dancers failed to transcend the technical level to achieve something more meaningful.
