This dance performance piece presents a series of encounters between characters of fluidly indeterminate gender and sexual orientation, riffing on the iconography of classic gangster movies. There is no narrative as such, but the performance is thematically (emotionally?) concerned with taboos and transgressions and built around duets that are at once combative, harmonious, and transformative. Dancers Isabella Oberländer and Olwen Grindley are accompanied by live vocal performance by David Turpin, deviser of the score, which is half ambient electronica and half torch song pastiche.

The production runs the risk of being entirely too straight for its own good (pun intended), but the execution is pleasing, the pace is brisk, and the running time is short. Long-limbed Oberländer makes a striking androgyene from the outset, while compact, powerful Grindley radiates strength even draped in a silky grey dress. There’s not a huge amount of fireworks in what we see, but the workrate is visibly high and the level of specificity in pose and gesture makes either for bafflement or joy depending on the degree to which you are attuned to its points of reference in classic movies and fashion.

Harvey O'Brien