MILLING crowds of ticket-holders for the opening of New Territories 2006, not enough chairs. The first moves of the night are ours, as we scramble for a seat.
One of the performers pulls a curtain in front of our side of the seating bank and it is clear we've been set up. Portuguese choreographer Rui Horta's disconcerting gambit will be repeated at various points throughout the piece, and each time it's like having a door slammed in your face. Even if nothing's happening, you want to see.
Things do, however, happen in the narrow corridor between both banks of onlookers. Three men - mature performers, confident speakers as well as nifty dancers - form and break bonds with varying degrees of playfulness and aggression. There are power shifts, signalled by the nuanced details of gesture or facial expression that are a hallmark of Horta's perceptive choreographies.
There are outbreaks of teasing, boisterous camaraderie and bouts of macho horseplay that twist and darken into full-on confrontation. One minute, two guys are cheekily hitting on the third, the next we're witnessing the same trio in an edgy harangue about names, faces and identity, as Horta disrupts the performers' apparent familiarity with questions you'd expect from hostile strangers. Meanwhile, a video screen holds images of two chairs - shadows of those on the rarely-used stage - offering another claim on our attention. Where do you look? Who do you latch on to of the three? Is some of the action (and its undertow of intimacy) too close for comfort?
Horta and his outstanding performers set up a chain-reaction of fascinating questions. Best of all, they leave the answers up to us.
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