Lullaby

Vardimon in her choreography requires very precise athletic movement; much of the time dancers seems to bent or bending double, and in their duos to be twisting each other round in what in other circumstances would be considered violent. Yet the dancers are athletes, and while they don’t make the moves seem effortless they are never less than graceful and perfectly controlled.

The choreography is physically risky, sometimes bruisingly so, and often refreshingly inventive.

Politically correct it isn’t, but Vardimon’s dance theatre has a compelling dark-magic realism; magnifying neuroses and transforming familiar social ritual into surreal nightmare. Which is what this genre of contemporary dance does best.

Jasmin’s work seems to me to be the epitome of contemporary dance. How old-fashioned so much else that goes by that name seems in comparison. It’s one of those works of art that stays with you, that makes you realise that dance can be political and entertaining, and that it can speak about things with a depth and profundity words alone can’t reach.