It has to be a sign of Henri Oguike's confidence that his most ambitious work to date should be a dance setting of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Not only has this opera been definitively marked by the huge inky prints of Mark Morris's choreographic genius, but there are practical reasons why Oguike's version should fall short of Morris's 1989 setting.
While Morris could afford live singers and musicians, Oguike has to make do with a recording. While Morris had the pick of an experienced company, Oguike has only a troupe of eight. And while Morris danced the lead, Oguike has the less versatile Sarah Storer to take the roles of Dido and the Sorceress.
To Oguike's credit, he has tried hard to take a different approach. Fast choral sections are alternated with slow expressionist monologues and he has highlighted the casual brutality of Dido's fate by enhancing the role of the sexually maverick Messenger, whose function in the tragedy is part Puck, part pimp. Unfortunately, the performance is nowhere near big enough to register the intensity of Dido's tragedy.
Yet, while the story-telling falters in Dido, it throws into relief how sure-footed Oguike can be on safer ground. In the pure dance pieces that make up the rest of programme, the music's beat flies with almost visible directness to the dancers' bodies.
In Front Line, Oguike unleashes his own demons in a controlled fury of percussive feet, slapping hands and bruisingly peremptory moves.The hard muscular edge is infiltrated by a flickering lightness, and the contrast of searing lines and nervous energy makes the stage hum and roar.
It is a fusion of weight and velocity which is joyously revisited in Oguike's other new work Finale. An astonishing party spirit quickens the dancers feet, sending them carousing with reckless speed through the deft patterns of the choreography. Oguike knows what riches the musical repertory can hold. And he has already fashioned some very cunning, very powerful keys to unlock them.
· At Richmond Theatre, London (020-8940 0088), on April 12.
