You think you've seen it all. Until one of Jan Fabre's dancers cocks her leg, hitches up her skirt, and - in her own good time - urinates, rapid-fire, on stage. Another has a more demure outpouring, while a third puddle is made by a woman who can barely summon up a trickle. Poor love.
What is surprising, quite apart from the act itself, is how quickly you start comparing technique. And then there's the elegance of execution. Troubleyn, Fabre's Antwerp-based company, are serenely comfortable and outstandingly strong in their onerous duties.
The Crying Body, a Tramway co-commission, has its only UK showing in Glasgow this week. Fabre, its creator, is an artist trading in a thoroughly postmodern mix of video, visual art, theatre and dance; he is celebrated in his own country but seldom shown here. His large-scale Swan Lake, performed by the Royal Ballet of Flanders at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002, was a disappointment. The Crying Body is not. Controversial, shocking, funny, thought-provoking, it features a series of ghastly tableaux that reflect the vision of artists such as Breughel and Goya: dancers cry, drink their own urine, produce deep mucus and shag their brains out for us, just to give an insight on two physical manifestations of emotion, sweat and tears. (Thankfully, blood is left out this time.)
To build up that sweat, eight dancers work at their extreme limits. Unable to avoid a starring position, the sinewy Geert Vaes beats his chest until it is deep red. He is the spit of Christ. His foil is the shaking man with the bicycle, the jester - a role Fabre includes to reflect the rest.
Lashings of mental and physical exposure, slapstick humour and shock tactics make you look away at times (the gobbing did it for me), but leave you scrabbling for sense. Fabre's in-your-face technique does not always succeed: the opening scene of warriors and women is a screaming contest too far. But as it develops and wrings liquid from grief, aggression, anger, love, sex, play and sickness, this piece cries out for attention.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 0845 330 3501.
