Stereoscopic Trilogy 2

Dance Base

Four stars

We've perhaps become a tad blasé about 3D, but Billy Cowie's dance works in Stereospcopic Trilogy 2 yet again use the technology to tease our perceptions of what's real and what's virtual - and how that feeds into reflections, not just on dance but on how we read and map our daily experiences. Jacqueline Mitchell is the live dancer in both Art of Movement (extracts) and Dark Rain.

But once our 3D glasses are on, she seamlessly enters an other-worldly realm alongside a virtual dancer. Precisely timed actions become more than choreographic demonstrations, they're a dialogue in (and across) other dimensions. This interaction is at its spookiest in Jenseits, where two screens simultaneously show a virtual Oxana Panchenko on a ladder seen through shifting monochrome patterns: the same, but also different, like echoes of a self in the here and now, or maybe in the here-after. Afterwards, the urge to pinch yourself is irresistible.

 

Ours Was The Fen Country

Dance Base

Four stars

Ours was the Fen Country is an elegiac witness to a community whose way of life, like the land itself, is shrinking under their feet. The words used in Dan Canham's piece come from Fen-landers themselves, their recorded voices giving rise to a minimal choreography that has an unfussy, gritty stamp to it, because to flounce about or get over-folksy would betray the humour, the ache for what's being lost and the harsh beauty of the landscape that all colour the anecdotes they share.

 

There We Have Been

Zoo Southside

Four stars

Anyone who saw James Cousins's duet, Jealousy, during Scottish Ballet's Dance Odysseys will detect a kinship with There We Have Been. Again, the man never lets the woman's feet touch the floor: but while he can support her in a myriad of inventive ways, he can't control her moods, her yearnings or her need to be self-determining. Aaron Vickers and Lisa Welham simply beggar belief with their stamina, expressive artistry and grippingly unhistrionic portrayal of a doomed relationship.

 

Duet

Zoo

Three stars

It's short - under half-an-hour - but Duet by h2dance punches above the weight of many works twice as long, with its funny yet savage, analysis of what keeps couples (and dance-makers Hanna Gillgren and Heidi Rustgaard) together despite different temperaments and self-obsessed egos.

All runs ended