The Motives Behind the Moves

If dance is difficult to define, choreographers are often willing to offer explanations.

Am I Naked? and A Propos de Butterfly both spend considerable time questioning their own intentions, trying to understand the compulsion to dance. Am I Naked?, apart from attracting large numbers of single men who spent most of the performance fiddling with their mobiles, is a short, entertaining series of contemporary sketches with live music.

Nudity - to the disappointment of the single men - is only used once, a visual metaphor for the exposure of the performer on stage and most of the scenes consider the purpose of dance, bounce around in-jokes about ballet stereotypes and yearn for purpose. The finale, with the dancers gradually disappearing into the wings, leaving behind answered questions of hope and fear, is awkwardly moving, and admits the failure of the company to answer their own question.

This failure does not extend to the performance though: Dreckley have only been producing since 2008, and the quality of technique and imagination is impressive. And the willingness to ask questions, without imposing answers, hints at a bright future.

A Propos de Butterfly comes from a vastly more experienced choreographer, Jose Besprosvany. Part of the Dance-Forms Showcase at Zoo, it had a very Belgian flair, video-screens and a self-referential monologue framing the dance, which illustrated scenes from the opera Madame Butterfly.

Aside from questioning his motivation, Besprosvany takes on American imperialism, the public perception of dance: a great collection of pre-recorded vox pops brings up definitions from "entertainment" through to "a more beautiful vision of the world"

A Propos did have its impact rather undermined by a speech by the organiser of Dance-Forms, who felt the need to apologise for its anti-Americanisms. And the dance itself was slightly too predictable: Captain Pinkerston, the American adventurer stomped around grandly while his Japanese wife, treated as a puppet, was sweet and vulnerable. Yet Besprosvany's self-depreciating wit - and sudden arrival on-stage to correct the action - lent the performance a depth, connecting the original opera to the values behind George Bush's recent jaunts in the Middle East.

In the end, neither piece came up with a satisfactory definition of dance, or why it might be an appropriate medium for these ideas. Their executions were radically different, their intentions almost opposing: Besprosvany admits that he wants to change the world, while Dreckley fancied understanding themselves a little better. But from their confusion, a fertile questioning has emerged.