Defined

Published Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 11:10 by Thom Dibdin

There is something rapturous about Hofesh Shechter’s latest ballet for Scottish Dance Theatre. It is in the choreography’s sense of ecstasy. The feeling that, in their passionate, hand-raising, unison movements, the seven dancers are affirming the presence of a higher being. This is, however, deep irony in a piece called DOG - ‘god’ backwards - in which a portentous statement about evolution covers the beginning of the soundtrack.

Over half an hour, Shechter mingles smooth and slow with hard and fast, both in his music, which samples Bach and Verdi, and the choreography. Dressed in urban street clothes designed by Phyllis Byrne, the dancers drag and slide their socked feet across the performance surface as, in trios and duos, they cross the stage on all fours, using loping, ape-like movements to accompany the slow periods of music. The quasi-religious ecstasy dominates the fast, beat-heavy, rhythmic and mechanical musical sections. Occasionally a syncopated beat allows for a little shoulder shuffle in this technically tantalising and beautifully realised but surprisingly soulless piece.

If DOG fills the stage with its upbeat celebration of movement and juxtaposition, the two preceding pieces demand a more focused setting. In Lorent’s crepuscular tenterhook, there is a also evolution, although here it is of affection and support between the pairs of dancers.

Performed in a 9ft square of light, Ivgri and Greben’s duet In the Middle of the Moment demands even greater precision. Every transgression of the boundary by dancers Toby Fitzgibbons and Victoria Roberts should be deliberate. By not being so, the delineation becomes redundant and the focus of the piece lost.