The brochure blurb for Janice Parker's Unlimited commission Private Dancer promised to 'play with our expectations and emotions through unique choreography'. Unfortunately, I can't say that this was my experience of the work. I very much wanted it to be, but felt that this work that had so much potential didn't quite deliver on a number of levels.

Hoping for a You Me Bum Bum Train-esque journey into other people's worlds and mind-sets, I instead found myself viewing a number of very different dancers performing very similar movement to the same, rather melancholic soundtrack.

The strength of the work was to be found in the concept, that of an audience being invited to enter different rooms in a 'house', and observe an individual's own private, self-created world and personal movement. Had the rooms been more separate, more different from each other, with an individual soundtrack and one-of-a-kind decor, I think this sense of insight into the individual performer would have been more achievable.

Instead, we saw container-style small rooms, with a variety of themes suggested by sparsely-arranged props, including stones laid out in a geometric pattern, mirrors large and small, hanging costumes, personal photos and tables of arts and crafts materials.

There were some intricate, personal and surprising moments. As the performers moved throughout the audience when we first entered the space, we began to see pockets of fluid trios, duets and solos around the space, unsure of whether or not these were chance meetings, and of who would suddenly become part of the performance next.

Upon being invited in to a dancer's room to observe their Private Dance one-to-one, you felt special, chosen, and these were the moments I wanted more of: a sense of real connection and insight into another's world.

In contrast, upon having a door closed on you, you're made to feel left out, and forced to peek through the crescent cut outs in the corrugated plastic doors, which actually, it turns out, frame the action inside rather beautifully.

This almost voyeuristic role of the audience is heightened later in the piece, as CCTV-like camera images of all of the rooms are projected onto one wall of the space that holds the house.

The production must be applauded for its accessibility, with clear instructions of what to expect, and the BSL interpretation of these instructions. I wonder, though, if stopping for these 'instruction' moments is too disruptive to the flow of the performance, and perhaps there is another way to approach this, still ensuring that the audience feels safe, but not breaking out of the world which the performers are working to create.

Towards the end of the work, we are led outside of the walls of the house to watch a line of five dancers performing a short quirky sequence, bringing about a moment of humour and a much-needed smile. We also see a male duet in the mirror room (which wasn't theirs before; I was slightly bothered that they'd taken over what was supposed to be someone else's private space). Again, this duet had the same slow, fluid, calming but unchanging movement quality, and I was unsure of their relationship to each other and to us. A second duet out of the house showed a clearer but more private relationship: a glimmer of what I'd hoped for from the rest of the work.

The piece ended on a high, with the cast leading the audience to mingle with each other in the space, upon which their smiles and uninhibited dancing to Blondie's 'Atomic' encouraged everyone to join them in their own moment of freedom, their own private dance.

Private Dancer is charming and holds so much potential, but perhaps focuses too little on the 'private', and too much on its public perception.