On paper, Beijing Dance Theater appeared to be an exciting addition to Sadlers Wells' 'Out of Asia' programme (also featuring the likes of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Akram Khan and Cloud Gate Dance Theatre): their choreographer and founder Wang Yuanyuan is “one of the most sought-after” Chinese choreographers and a guest choreographer for New York City Ballet, fusing ballet with contemporary dance. In the three short years of the company's existence, it has become one of the preeminent contemporary dance companies of China - so how could Haze go wrong?

Haze claims to be a response "to the economic and environmental crises of early 2009"; elsewhere, it's suggested that it's about the pollution of Beijing. Environmental crises are certainly implied by the ever-present haze, and by a smoke machine towards the rear of the stage, sometimes suggesting a geyser, sometimes suggesting a volcanic eruption. The padding on the stage initially resembles a barren field, becoming concrete-like in the middle section, before finally being exposed as plastic at the end.

Fundamentally, however, Haze was a piece about falling - about the moments before you fall, what you accomplish and achieve before you fall - and how you fall. About the moment of falling, and its inevitability. Duets would consist of a few short steps before both dancers fell to the ground - as though they symbolised brief encounters before returning to the earth.

The stage padding both accentuated and hampered the choreography of Haze; while it enabled the dancers to travel much further and throw themselves to the ground or across the stage, its instability lessened the impact of some beautiful movements while limiting what movement was available to the dancers. And while the use of the mat could have provided great choreographic potential, unfortunately the movement vocabulary of the piece was very limited, with many recurring moves and motifs. And spending 75 minutes of watching dancers fall over is not an enthralling experience.

Considering the wealth of East Asian choreographic talent in London, Beijing Dance Theater was a rare opportunity to see the diversity of works being created in China, and I’d hoped that this would be an opportunity to see some of the artistic background influencing the UK-based dance artists, even if Beijing Dance Theater is only three years old. And while the set was reminiscent of NDT’s ‘Dissolve In This’ (2010), and there's no denying the technical abilities of the company's dancers, Haze reinforced how spoiled we are for dance in London, with so many of the world’s greatest companies performing regularly – beside which Beijing Dance Theater can’t possibly compare.