As is the nature of any festival, Cloud Dance Festival presents the audience with a mixed bag of performances from new and emerging contemporary dance artists and the final evening of Cloud Dance Festival, perhaps for sometime, was no different. Shying away from the temptation to go out on an all-audience pleasing big bang, the final evening of this summer’s festival, aptly named Hush, entertained and confused its enthusiastic and loyal audience in equal measure, before fading into the night, leaving everyone hoping that one day there will be more. Opening the evening was Isadora Duncan Dance Company dancer Julia Pond’s work the little difference words make. Greatly influenced by the turn of the century’s pioneering dancer, Isadora Duncan, the choreography initially struggled to connect with its 21st century dance audience. Hazy episodes of Grecian girls with swirling scarves bordered on the comical. The piece was successfully redeemed, however, by a beautifully lit and passionately performed temple-dancing solo by Pond.

With the absence of The Typewriters’ work The Dead Can Dance, the ironically-named SuperB Dance Theatre were next to perform their work In between us. Less dynamic than their name might suggest, SuperB Dance Theatre’s work was void of any notable dance content. The symbolic use of umbrellas as personal space and an observation on how we interact with others shows great potential but never delivers. The endless pacing of the dancers soon becomes wearisome and the audience distracted.

‘Express yourself to impress yourself’ was the resonating message of Cambridge Contemporary Dance’s work Please Please Please. Haunting female sound bites, like the voices in your head accompany the three arresting female dancers as they explore and develop their individual motifs. Disappointingly, the movement never builds to match its dramatic classical accompaniment but the mesmerizing motion of the ensemble keeps the audience captivated.

Kinisi Dance Company dancer, Mary Sherwin’s choreography, Over, performed by herself and two other Kinisi dancers, was a short, high-octane, high impact piece. More akin to an MTV music video with hip-hop inspired movement, hair flicking and torn fishnets, the work seemed at odds with the tone of the rest of the evening but thoroughly entertaining nonetheless.

Choreographer Lucía Piquero and dancer Kate Hodder of Diciembre Dance Group performed a work based on the dark side of childhood, entitled Kensington Gardens. Dressed in childlike clothes and pigtails, the long-leaping, high-kicking, box-splitting duo demonstrated considerable talent but the work lacked the necessary content and emotion promised in the programme notes.

Completing their triple bill at this season’s festival, Taciturn never fail to impress with their slick and witty choreography. Packed with personality, Hang up your coat and stay a while, is a spirited play-fight over colourful cardigans. Satisfyingly rough-around the edges, as the quartet whip off and on each others clothing whilst bounding across the stage, the ensemble are always in sync with the joyful soundtrack. Youthful and connected, the company take evident pleasure in dancing together and as a result are a delight to watch.

Exuding an altogether more serene quality was returning artists, Kinisi Dance Company’s work, Crease. Quite literally a whole world away from their last Cloud Dance Festival offering, choreographer Charlene Dinger transports us to Japan, focusing her choreography on the shapes and designs of the ancient art of origami. The movement is technically adept but uninventive with too many dancers crowding the intimate stage. The performance is outshone by the beautiful twists and turns of an aerial dancer presiding over the events on stage.

Closing the evening, and indeed the festival, was critically-acclaimed Finnish dancer Jarkko Lehmus and his work Da Enstunde Ein Engel. Growing out of the darkness, like the eyes adjusting to an object in the night, Lehmus’ command of the stage is compelling, his slow and deliberate movements transfixing. In a work with little movement content Lehmus projects a magnificent, palpable energy; at once statuesque and spiritual a subtle but fitting end to this pioneering festival.