If you think ballet is a dusty chocolate-box affair of pirouettes and tutus, cop a load of this company in its only visit to Britain this year.

Dressing their frantically athletic dancers in floral frocks, overcoats and children's party hats, Sweden's leading dance company offers ballet with one hand on the throttle and another in the dressing-up box.

Now in its fourth decade, this international ensemble has shown its dramatic productions in more than 40 countries, consistently working popular appeal with a style that foregrounds the strong personalities of its dancers.

Now Cullberg Ballet has gained a further coup in the recruitment of new artistic director Johan Inger, a choreographer known for his visual tricks and quirky metaphors.

Composed entirely by Inger, this triple bill features both abstract and narrative sequences, with two pieces made for his previous company, the Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and a brand new work.

The first of these, 2001's Walking Mad, is a surreal comic-strip adventure that moves between burlesque and poignant, as three women explore their relationships to themselves and the men in their lives. Here Inger deliberately roughs up two rather over-exploited scores, Ravel's crescendoing Bolero and Arvo Part's Alina for solo piano, with an ironic take on the battle of the sexes.

The dancers engage in madcap chases and random skirmishes around a mobile wall, out of which portals materialise and vanish, their startling limb stretches falling over into daft physical comedy. It is, says Cullberg, a "humourous piece with a serious undertone".

Out Of Breath also makes intriguing use of an adaptable set, designed by long-term collaborator Myra Ek. True to the title, three women and three men make repeated but varied attempts to scale a giant wall which keeps changing angle and position. Hurtling across the stage in raw and relentless duets, the cast move in and out of this ribbed slope, jumping, clambering and occasionally disappearing from sight.

As the accompaniment ranges from Felix Lajko's Hungarian violin music to part of Jacob ter Veldhuis' Third String Quartet, the dancers move to establish relationships or swift-footedly dodge them.

True enough, Cullberg describes Out Of Breath as "a piece about people nervously searching for their place in life".

Saved for the finale is the UK premiere of Within Now, created for Cullberg Ballet earlier this year and about which Inger will disclose very little. Choreographed to music by Steve Reich and situated in a landscape somewhere between past and future, you can, however, expect an attempt to capture and pay tribute to the versatile identity of this most enigmatic of dance companies.

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