Miranda @ Cottiers

After the physical theatre nightmare of The Red Shoes, a fringe entry which translated the classic film into the daily experience of a ballet dancer’s training and passion for glory, Kally Lloyd Jones’ most recent pieces for Company Chordelia have emphasised restraint and an almost austere ballet vocabulary. Cabaret Chordelia is a polite contribution to the variety revivals –  a tenor and three dancers hint at the erotic costume of burlesque while presenting a more restrained, British take on the 1930s cabaret: Miranda is a psychodrama that concentrates on a movement limited vocabulary that is mostly ballet and mime.

Miranda, despite a disingenuous programme note that suggests that “the meaning belongs to you”, has a clear story. A dissolute woman – she is drunk at the start – is plunged into a journey of self-discovery, reconciling her with her younger self and attended by a Pierrot clown. Lloyd Jones, as befits a director for Scottish Opera, is confident when creating evocative moments: a duet in the darkness, illuminated by a torch; a cowled Pierrot attending Miranda; a doll’s house, lit and inviting as a symbol of Miranda’s lost security; a piano apparently playing itself. Yet despite the score’s roll-call of romantic composers, and a soundtrack dominated by heavy breathing, Miranda is polite and restrained.

The consciously reduced range of choreographic variety limits the various solos and duets to the feeling of an exercise: the imagery, which evokes adolescence, prevents the fantasy uncovering deeper truths. The message – that the angst of youth manifests in uncertain maturity, and perhaps can be healed by identification – is worked over in detail. The austerity of the dance, mirrored by a black and white set, eschews any grand passions for a more suggestive psychology.

Miranda lacks any high drama, leaving the actual foundations of the angst vague and abstract – a general sense of unease pervades the choreography. By restraining both passions and movement, the dance is safe, mild, well-mannered and ignores the trends within both ballet towards acrobatic display and European contemporary work that insists on emotional intensity.