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The Space in Westferry provided an intimate, up-close and somewhat cosy setting for this triple bill of work by C-12 Dance Theatre’s established and emerging choreographers.

James Williams’s ‘In New Light’ opened the programme, demonstrating slick, fluid, well-rehearsed movement material performed on, over, around and underneath a black sofa.  A duet for Williams and Ana Dias, ‘In New Light’ starts with a bang (a very loud bang, from live musician Janette Williams’s drumkit), and gradually builds from dimly lit, thoughtfully placed gestural motifs, into an accomplished partnership of the two performers.

There is a serene and nonchalant energy as Dias and Williams deftly shift and tip the sofa to create surprising and pleasing moments that are revisited but constantly developed and further explored throughout the work.

The live drums are accompanied by Andrew Willshire on bass guitar, which is made the focus of the work as the dancers become still. Willshire’s melancholic chords serve to bring about a shift in energy in the piece, and give way to a simple exchange and first suggestion of real human connection between the two dancers. Building on this, the movement relationship becomes playful towards the end of the piece, developing the work and changing the feeling of the space in a way that enriched the precision of the movement in a way that had not been demonstrated earlier on in the work.

After a short break, the evening moved on to the second guest choreographer of the evening,  Miranda Mac Letten’s ‘The Endeavour To Be Super’. This was a playful, engaging work that explores its four characters’ feelings of being behind the mask of a super hero, and then exposed as themselves.

Letten demonstrates insightful use of stock cartoon super hero movements, and all four of the creeping, tip-toeing performers made good use of their proximity to the audience in the intimate performance space.

Comedic sequences of a phone ringing, and the dancers covertly shifting around the set, comprising of two wallpapered panels with framed Batman prints on, gave a sense of a plot thickening, although it is never quite clear what that plot might be.

The light-hearted, mischievous exchanges between the four dancers continue, and build into very genuine struggles and scuffles, supported by the familiar ‘BANG’, ‘ZAP’, ‘WHAM’ cartoon signs; it is humorous and enjoyable. The humour begins to dissipate towards the end, as John Ross reacts physically to Camila Guiterrez dropping sheets of cartoon words, and a more sinister tone is suggested, just as the piece ends, leaving Ross lying defeated on the floor, with a sense that there may be something here to be continued.

The final piece of the night was an extract from ‘Scorned’ by C-12’s Artistic Director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster, featuring ‘four fierce, powerful and disgruntled women’. Through a series of lyrical unison phrases, and detail in trembling hands and tightly wound facial expressions, the audience are witness to their collective and individual angst.

These four very individual bodies (two in white slip dresses, two in black) are perhaps not used as effectively as possible, but as a group they are powerful. Moments of note include skilful use of a large white sheet, entwining each dancer at a time, shifting, lifting and carrying them through a series of dynamic and unexpected exchanges.

The movement material constantly responds to the soundtrack of rich strings, harpsichord and electric guitar, at times in a way which can seem over the top or forced. The more engaging sections are of defiant unison, with echoes of vocabulary from strong women such as Martha Graham.

With a five-night run at The Space, there is every reason to see this varied and engaging evening of work.