Old floorboards creaked, the temperature rising as you ascend the small but cozy theatre space that is The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick. It’s an intimate setting, bringing the dancers in close proximity to their audience, immersing both parties in loud music and mood lighting. A lone female dancer, dressed in black lace emerges from the corner, casting a long shadow onto the back wall. Her hair is severely coiled on her head, her movement quick and precise.

So begins AD Dance Company’s program And We Gather; injury had unfortunately affected these performances, and the company have done a wonderful job of reworking things at the last moment.

Calling upon the inspirational likes of Marie Rambert and Wayne McGregor is a vast and ambitious claim. Were both choreographers sitting side-by-side, these iconic British names may never have fathomed themselves in the same sentence, but this clash of choreographic influences has found a resting ground within the night’s program. Comprised of two works, Slowly We Collide and And They Have Escaped, both pieces sought to examine the influence of gender in choreography.

Slowly We Collide, choreographed by artistic director Holly Noble, leads a tangled journey, the two female dancers taunting and compelling the four male dancers to accompany them. There we strong overtones of swan images in this work, the dancers lifting their arms and isolating their shoulders, artistically preening before beginning another duet. Both male and female dancers had strong facility, and high legs abound in this work, punctuated with technically strong pas de deux work from the dancers.

I wonder at the ultimate intention of this piece, the male dancers showing no compulsion to physically respond to the female dancers who would cling to them, clearly trying to dominate. Were they commenting on the balletic dynamic of a female lead and her partner, I could forgive the ambivalence the males displayed, but a stronger call for an interrelationship would have developed a clearer notion of what was going on. The male dancers, often echoing the females in flipping their legs, matched one another so closely there was a stronger unity than division.

And They Have Escaped, choreographed by company members Chandelle Allen and Brett Murray, was busting with music and material. The whole company, entering the stage and creating boxes for themselves conveyed a series of duets, trios and group work, which was instigated by the dancers exiting their box. Progressively, they did indeed escape, with movements which were powerful, punctuated and fragmented. The tone of this piece contrasted strongly with the last, and the influx of the aforementioned inspiration was hinted at in the varying partnerships.

I would be interested to see this work displayed on a longer trajectory. There were so many ideas, and before they completely unraveled they were recapped and wound up to a conclusion. A whirlwind series, these relationships belied the long male solo at the beginning which involved the dancer darting and mimicking a dancer in another box, encouraging him to move. This solo captured a poignant moment, and this sensitivity carried throughout the rest of the piece may have calmed and shaped the rest into a more paced work.

AD Dance Company has grappled with an overload of ideas which never had the time or space to develop completely. While the dancers were certainly technically capable, the conceptual content was too ambitious and failed to achieve the physical resonance within the dancers for them to emotionally understand the piece and move their audience. Whilst the overall intent of this work was to gather, there were so many fragments that drove both of these pieces to disperse.