Scottish Dance Theatre: Matters of the Heart @ Zoo Southside

Modern love: it's prickly and complicated, made of equal measures of longing and cynicism. Yet it's still possible to find a perfect match. And it's difficult to think of a more fitting one than American choreographer Kate Weare joining forces with Scottish Dance Theatre for SDT's double anniversary (25 years in existence and 10 years since their Fringe debut).

Weare is renowned for choreography that runs the gamut of modern love: playful, savage, intense, delicate, painful, physical, dark. Combine this with SDT's ability to balance the comic with the poignant, and the dramatic with the thoughtful – and how Weare's vision will be realised through the performances of SDT's dancers is one of the most exciting questions of Fringe 2011.

Weare's piece Lay Me Down Safe lays bare the experience of reckoning with desire and loss. She describes the theme in elemental terms: “I think our instincts toward connection, toward touching another and being accepted, is a powerful underpinning of dance as an art form, and a razor-sharp lens into what it feel like to be human. This is our human version of swimming upstream: we are compelled to connect with each other despite all odds.” And of her collaboration with SDT: “Whenever you work with new dancers, especially ones as skilful and generous as these ones, it shines a sort of cleansing light on your assumptions and what you take for granted artistically.”

“Lay Me Down Safe explores whether desire – the experience we follow like a moth to light – ultimately keeps us safe from harm, or places us right in its path.”

It's typical of SDT's commitment to developing talent that their anniversary show includes voices from within the company. A Little Shadery, by SDT’s assistant director Sally Owen, is a winning combination of different types of Baroque excess (Handel meets Looney Tunes!) as a Persian prince sings to his tree. What's not to like?

The other short two-hander is Dreamt for Light Years, an exploration of change and opposition by SDT dancer Joan Cleville.

There'll be a rotating cast of SDT regulars, including James MacGillivray, Matthew Robinson, Natalie Trewinnard, Joan Cleville, Naomi Murray, Toby Fitzgibbons and one of the most charismatic performers from last year's Fringe, Solene Weinachter.

Risk-taking, innovative, collaborative and nurturing, SDT's work is so exciting and, so often, heart-achingly beautiful.

Matters of the Heart is part of the Made in Scotland showcase; I hope Scotland realises how lucky it is. The show only has a short run at Zoo Southside, so don't make the mistake of missing it.