Each Other @ Tramway, Glasgow

If contemporary art often falls back on the ‘it’s open to interpretation’ line, Each Other, by contrast, seems to cry out for meaningful excavation. Choreographed by Israeli-Dutch choreographic duo Uri Ivgi and Johan Greben for Scottish Ballet, it is the opening number for Dance International Glasgow 2017. Each Other heavily inhabits Tramway’s cavernous space, offering moments of intensity and grit.

The dancers are placed in a dilapidated, urban environment. Scattered shoes make up the landscape’s rubble; the dancers wade through then part the shoes into intersections, grabbing and discarding the rubbery objects in gestures that search, possess and release. Shiny red shoes are later brought on, cradled and then placed under a severe red spotlight; it is reflective of the piece’s blocky yet uncertain symbolism.

Pulling in ‘contemporary’ choreographers to work on ballet companies can either facilitate exciting new possibilities or feel ill-fitted. The dancers of Scottish Ballet are not always smooth melting into the floor or grounded and deep in their lunges. However, bring out the attitudes and back bends and smooth, articulated fluidities appear.

The lighting design by Yaron Abulafia is a show stealer. At first murky orange and garbage green, it morphs through piercing blues and pinks, filtered at points through an icy smoke. The costumes can feel at times distracting, the excess of ripped material hiding the dancers’ movements.

When the piece gets going, we're almost forced to put down our critical pen and be swept up in Each Other's beat. One particular moment finds the dancers pitted against each other, either facing the front or rear of the stage. Coupled with shifting lighting, and a driving soundscape, the dancers uncannily and never quite exactly mirror each other, always tensing on the edge of confrontation. Later, as they pass each other across piles of shoes, the sudden triangulations of legs produce vibrant, spirographic collisions.

Each Other ends on an impressive, acrobatic solo from one of the female dancers that closes the evening with a show of leonine agility. This is a work not without merit, despite its sometimes rudimentary feel.