Ballet Preljocaj: And Then, One Thousand Years Of Peace @ Edinburgh Playhouse

We are all insignificant dots. While we're in existentialist mode, it's the perfect time to witness this pulverising piece by the truly exceptional Ballet Preljocaj. It will fire you up - although not always for the right reasons. As motifs go, there could not be a more interesting premise. An Apocalyptic world slowly unravelling, revealing hopes, fears and dreams previously buried in our collective subconscious. 

While the technical skills of the Preljocaj ensemble are impressive - layered, precise, geometrical, ever-flowing in their movement - there's a seeming issue of gender politics that doesn't sit well. The curtain opens on the corps' female dancers, achingly skinny in beige underwear, who dance with limbs jutting out at angles, as spare as Igor Chapurin's costumes. They crash to the floor, taking shelter under plastic, only to be saved by the male dancers (who scoop them up, still wearing plastic) in grey suit jackets and trousers. It just seems too pat, too simplistic - men as rescuers, women helpless empty vessels.

Perhaps, as the piece is deliberately steeped in ambiguity, this is a misreading, and the imagery is instead a commentary on patriarchal conditioning, but it feels uncomfortable. Indeed, discomfort and provocation are rife. Liberty and slavery are recurring themes; as chains fall from the ceiling, violence is played out in a pas de deux between two men who spar and bite, only to end up in a passionate clinch - the line is crossed. Love and anger; the duality in all living things.

A modernist, startling approach permeates, from the jarring, shrill techno of Laurent Garnier, to Chapurin's costumes.The only real source of vibrant colour comes from international flags draped around the ensemble's faces and bodies as they indulge in sustained sexual positions: a world orgy? Cluster fuck? Bringing new meaning to unification?

Often, the pas de deux are easier to get a handle on: angels of death in white are more cyberpunk than cherubim, mirroring each other, stretching upwards ; a man and woman play out an almost BDSM ritual, she in a bustier, he blindfolded, slamming each other against makeshift walls - the sacred and profane, not merely co-existing but co-dependent.

But nothing prepares you for the finale, with live sheep being brought out - not lambs to the slaughter, but more symbols of innocence, perhaps resolution. A visceral, furious multi-sensory experience leaving the audience exhausted, pummeled but grateful. The audience are reminded they are not dead inside, which, a few weeks into the festival, takes some doing. We are so insignificant, though... [Lorna Irvine]