The Argus: Brighton Festival 2012

Psychologically intense, these three unique works of contemporary dance represented performers at their limits of mental and physical endurance.

The first short piece, Lee Meir’s Translation Included began with the solo female performer simply looking at the audience, pointing and repetitively asking: “Is it working between us?” Her arm movements slowly grew and infected her whole body as Meir twisted and contorted around the stage in a personal torment which appeared both comical and tragic but always so intense you couldn’t take your eyes from the performer.

The second work, Dog Kennel Hill Project’s The Devil & The Details, included three performers in a hilarious discomfiting drama in which a dancer, then the audience, was put through an impossible audition by a domineering interviewer. One man provided beat box-style sound effects, while a woman gave the dancer ridiculously long orders involving going “down, come up again” and demanding to see “the Highlands” in his eyes, while the unfortunate subordinate tried to comply. It connected the audience to its emotion.

The final act, Daniel Linehan’s Not About Everything, involved the solo artist spinning rapidly on the spot for half an hour, but was so much more. Linehan talked as he span about what his bewilderingly mesmerising effort was not about. He mentioned just about everything from his ego, injustice, suffering and art. He asked: “Is it a creative act or a destructive act?” Whatever it was, it drew you in with its simplistic extremity.

All the acts were original and provocative as well as highly entertaining.