Miann

It is clear from the detailed programme notes and energetic execution that Miann—Gaelic for craving—has been a labour of love for Scottish Dance Theatre Artistic Director Fleur Darkin and her team of dancers. There are intriguing aims at play, exploring the nature of coming together and the power of community, and the company has gone to lengths to research the project, travelling to one of Scotland's most sacred spiritual sites, the Callanish Stones.

The music of Glasgow-based The One Ensemble underscores the dance with strange and rippling jazz melodies, eventually melting into haunting ballads. But somewhere along the line, it seems the threads of communication have been frazzled (at least for me) and the choreography—tight and muscular as it is—has no access point to grip hold of, leaving much of it feeling like dancers moving at their own pace and tempo, each in their own separate world.

Granted this might be Darkin’s point on individuality, or it might not be. I have no idea. A woman jumps ferociously up and down. Men enter slowly, dead-eyeing the crowd or standing cruciform in front of the band. They wriggle on the floor (invisible to all but the front row). Later a shamanistic figure in a beaded robe Tanoura-spins into his own trance. Nothing seems to evolve from anything else, and while there are flickers of great beauty—when Amy Hollinshead peers through a chainmail curtain, or dancers hurl and twist through the air—much of Miann feels aggressively chaotic, and desperate to alienate.