Visiting Luxury: Scottish Dance Theatre

Scottish Dance Theatre have been making Dundee look cool since the arrival of Janet Smith as artistic director. A repertoire that includes pieces from hot-shot Hofesh Scheter and Liv Lorent, the company spans the divide between British and European contemporary, adding a spice of Caledonian flair. A Visitation and Luxuria are inconsistently brilliant, lacking cohesion and relying heavily on costume and moments of surpassing beauty to hide the simplicity of the ideas and a vein of sentimentality. Luxuria is visually arresting, the costumes billowing around the dancers and dictating the choreography: at times, it is as if the dancers are merely clothes-horses. Yet it is beautiful and adds difficult new techniques while exploring the range of the dancer's movement. The finale pairs an isolated man with a dripping wet woman in an odd moment of grace, but is more of an abrupt ending than a logical conclusion. A Vistation struggles with a more traditional techniques, the large cast filling out the stage and the score a satisfying collection of creaks and cracks. The assortment of dead souls battle each other, seeking to accept or deny their mortality. The atmosphere is appropriately haunting, even if there is little chance for individual dancers to shine. A solid pair of shows that hold up SDT's reputation without advancing it: the quality of staging and dancers ensures that this is popular, but tames the more challenging edge.