Garth Fagan Dance barely pause in their determination to press the biggest, brightest buttons available to their art form. During their opening programme, we see dance as a splurge of emotional energy, as virtuosity as athleticism. But, while the company's mix of fearlessness, talent and goodwill should be irresistible, the point of their performances slips between their steps.
The bittiness of the programme starts with its opening trio of short works, in which Fagan sets out the stall of his dancers' skills. With In Memoriam and Touring Jubilee 1924 he displays the extremes of their emotional range: the one a post-9/11 snapshot of grief, the other a slice of jitterbug fun. With Prelude, a faux company class in which buffed-up exercises are spliced with solo stunts, Fagan shows off the basic premises of his style.
This possesses a distinctive logic and energy. Fagan's roots lie in classic modern and Caribbean dance, and his fusion of the two is sharply analytic. He likes to put his dancers in stark, linear poses, poised on a knife edge of balance, which he vividly disarranges with a whirl of arms, a riff of percussive footwork, a rippling African spine. He is also fascinated by the challenge of making moves look bigger than the sum of their parts. Just as he amplifies steps with flamboyant detail, so he also ratchets up the scale of a phrase by adding two, three or four dancers and by crossing one sequence of moves with another so that their colliding energy goes through the roof.
Diverting as parts of this opening trio are, the evening is put on hold as we wait for Fagan to unfurl a more ambitious statement. Dispiritingly, the two longer pieces feel as random as the taster works. Music of the Line/ Words in the Shape, a setting of three pieces by John Adams, has no clear vision of its music - alternately bowling along on the pulse or ramming up against it with no apparent intent. Woza, set to music by Lebo M, is no more than a quartet of pleasant show numbers that trails inconclusively away.
By the end of the evening we feel genuinely fond of the dancers. Fagan flatters their skills, he hones in on their natural charm. But while individuals, such as the serenely powered Sharon Skepple, stick in the memory, most of the choreography has already evaporated before we've left the building.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7863 8000. Then at Nottingham Playhouse on Tuesday. Box office: 0115-941 9419.
