Stephen Petronio's choreography has always looked quintessentially urban. His dancers move as if blind, urgent impulses are hurtling them through space, sometimes propelling them into violent collisions, sometimes sending them along lone, driven trajectories. However, in Strange Attractors, which is Petronio's latest and most grown-up piece, it's as if that energy is at least taking weekends in the country.
This two-part show begins very strangely with a brief, dangling prelude in which the dancers are moulded together in a kind of collective, primitive embrace. They huddle in skewed but beautifully sculpted formations, though it's hard to tell whether they're meant to be damaged survivors of some traumatic event or a loyal family, for after a few minutes they simply abandon the stage. The long pause that follows makes you wonder if Petronio hasn't lost the plot, but eventually the opening phrases of Michael Nyman's commissioned score bring the eight principal dancers back, and for the next 30 minutes the stage is filled with confidently fluid, unfettered dance.
Nyman's music is far more spacious and lyrical than Petronio's usual choice of score, and with the men dancers wearing silky grey pyjamas and the women in little black frocks (designs by Ghost), the look of the company is far more serene than the old days of pink corsets and bondage gear. Also, where the choreography used to scorch the floor in fierce bolts of movement, it now curves in on itself in deftly organised formations. The dynamic of the dancing is fast - the dancers' limbs still whirl and jab with fearless momentum, their hips and heads moving in whiplash counterpoint - but the moves are contained within long balanced phrases, which suggests a fury held in check.
During certain passages the dancing is so very tightly contained that you start to wonder whether the piece is heading anywhere, but the final third of this section is simply beautiful. Elements in the music - a violin solo with a Vaughan Williams shimmer and some darkly romantic piano - elicit a kind of rapture from the choreography, with some of the dancers smiling as if surrendering to the pure pleasure of moving.
In the second half everything shifts. James Lavette's acerbic score immediately sharpens the dancers' focus, and they become even more reckless in their moves, launching into split-second jumps and catches, and dancing so hard that their bodies judder with the aftershock; yet the tightness of the ensemble isn't lost and the stylishness of the company performances is undiminished. In Strange Attractors Petronio's interest seems definitively to have shifted from the individual to the stage, and this is elegantly emphasised by Anish Kapoor's magical stage design. Simple but luxurious lighting bathes the space in pinks and blues, while two hanging hemi-spheres of reflective metal not only bounce back the light in glittering points but also reflect diminutive images of the dancers, a whole stage world contained within their polished gaze.
