It's been a long summer without any dance, thanks to the Olympics, but that came to an abrupt end with Jai Hutchinson's platform Insight's brief visit to London's Shaw Theatre, featuring NineBOBNote Dance Theatre and Cloud Dance Festival alumnus John Ross in its lineup.

The programme notes for John Ross's solo Man Down explain that the piece is inspired by a true story about life in a war zone, but this doesn't really prepare you for the experience of Ross's work. While it's the kind of piece which will have many of the audience members asking themselves afterwards "What was that?!", it's a piece which will have stayed with them for a long time afterwards - and not only because in Man Down, Ross has shown himself to have the rare quality of a new and original choreographic voice.

Using voiceovers and sound effects, Man Down is the story of the life and death of a soldier named James, as reported by his platoon commander Joseph Williams. A lithe and graceful performer, Ross allows the tension of the choreography to build and subside, with creative use of movement, whether expressing grief or matching the chaos of the score.

Man Down would greatly benefit from an effective lighting design to emphasise Ross's choreography to make this a much more powerful piece. A couple of sections are not as strong as the others and it's possible that these could be tightened with lighting or different use of sound: time will tell. John Ross is a talented dancer and promising choreographer and a name to remember.

Appropriately for being performed on the same night as the Opening Ceremony of the Paralympics, Amira Kremer's Sleepless at St James was performed by partially-sighted dancer Indra Slavena. Sleepless is a playful series of duets with pillows, with some very nice choreography performed by Indra, if very leggy choreography: the piece seems to be dominated by extensions, handstands, cartwheels and kicks. It's a light-hearted piece which seems to relish its accompaniment by Hugh Laurie.

Jack Stinton has the uncertain distinction of being the sole non-Scottish School of Contemporary Dance graduate in this lineup; also, his work, No Chance of Escape, was originally created for three male dancers but was performed on this occasion with three female dancers, and it's possible that they didn't have sufficient rehearsal time. No Chance of Escape has interesting ideas, but it lacked the sharpness of performance or choreography that it aimed for: for example, too many duets with one dancer fidgeting off to the side. It's yet another piece which seemed to aim for quantity rather than quality, and it would have benefitted from being reduced in length.

Following a brief interval, Jai Hutchinson's dancers performed Demolition in Progress, which claimed to be 'an exploration of themes of a self-destructive society', but was instead an ephemeral work with ephemeral solos with four women endlessly repeating their signature phrases while one woman hand-painted 'I KNOW WHO I AM. I AM STRONG.' on the rear wall. It's possibly a Fifties' definition of a self-destructive society?

The final work of the evening was As Yet Unknown by Lyndsey Allan's NineBOBNote Dance Theatre, which we fleetingly reviewed at the Accidental Festival. At first it appears to be three drunken women at the end of a girls' night out, each only wearing mismatching underwear and an open shirt. And then slowly some dance is worked in: two of the women launch into an improvised tap routine, then discuss a failed hair dye attempt while doing contact impro. It's a challenge to balance physical theatre with choreography, which Lyndsey Allan does skillfully, especially in bringing out the personalities and facial expressions of her dancers.

As Yet Unknown takes a while to find its stride, and loses its way from time to time, for example when extending gags for too long, but there are some great moments of genius, especially when the three women work together as a team, such as when one tells a story and the other two act it out. Lyndsey Allan, Lizzy Ryder and Courtney Robertson are all captivating performers to watch, and I can't wait to see what they do next.