She stands on one leg, perched on a brick like a contorted heron. Two bricks balance on her back and there's another rammed between her legs. Dancer Davina Givan stoically bears the burdens of abused womanhood in She Is as He Eats, a surreal but strong look at relationships from Belgian choreographer Jan De Schynkel. No Highland Flings here. Instead this sharp young company offer a selection of inventive, beautifully danced works with a European feel.
De Schynkel used to be with Nederlands Dans Theater 2 and it shows. His work has that visually compelling NDT feel and here he puts couples under the microscope with strange images and bizarre actions that trigger strong messages. The dancers appear on white cloth, stretched across the stage as if bungee-jumping horizontally. Givan dangles at the end of her tether while another couple entwine in bliss, hands hovering all over their bodies. The six are bound by the constraints of modern togetherness, but some eventually break free.
An imposing figure with elegant control, Errol White places bricks in neat lines. Are they the building blocks or stumbling blocks of life? Givan, browbeaten by her partner, seemingly gives birth to a brood of bricks. She builds up her family, only to see the foundations destroyed. In a poignant display she protects them like vulnerable infants.
Very different, Yael Flexer's new piece, Undone, is a quirky, engaging mix of martial arts and playground games. The five dancers stand in the corners of the stage with fixed grins as if embarrassed to step out, eventually breaking into uneasy action. Half the cast trained at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds and graduate Givan makes a good advert, dancing with great expression. She ventures into the square archly, eyes wide with amazement, and ends her off-kilter solo thrusting her pelvis out over the edge of the stage.
The piece teems with action and duels burst out as the performers try to outdo each other with slicing legs mirroring bouts of Tae Kwon Do. Danced in silence, until Nye Parry's score gradually kicks in, the choreography is full of whiplash moves. With their cropped heads and baggy grey garb the men look like Buddhist monks. They lift each other in spectacular fashion and suddenly the game's over. What's been done is undone.
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