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Recently cited in the Metro as one of the 'Top 5 in Demand Dance-Makers' (metro.co.uk/2013/02/21/dance-makers-in-demand-3507010/), and currently working on projects with English National Opera and the West End's 'Privates On Parade', as well as being a Place Prize semifinalist in both 2008 and 2012, it's safe to say there was a great deal of anticipation and even hype around Ben Wright's latest offering from his own company, bgroup.

The anticipation transferred onto the smoke-filled, red-lit stage at The Place, as two men in white lab coats surveyed the audience, then asked one woman ("you in the orange top") to join them onstage.

Positioned in front of a projector, a sequence of words flash up across her torso ('horny', 'inhaling', 'frequently hungry', 'spiritual', 'a lover', 'a liar') as four carefully-articulating bodies shift towards her. As a quintet, they move through the blank space, shifting weight and relationships to a soundtrack of heavy breathing and not much else.

There are sinister attempts to strangle, kiss and paw at the woman in the orange top - who is, in fact, dancer Allison Ahl. The group surges around Ahl as their pivotal point, and an absorbing tension builds as she is playfully thrown, deftly caught, and tickled.

A mechanical soundtrack serves as a well-placed accompaniment to these seemingly intentionally fragmented sequences that move expertly in and out of structured moments of unison. Focus shifts occasionally to others, and an angst-ridden Robert Clarke shouts from the floor before stripping off from the waist down, perhaps a step further than necessary in this otherwise cleverly subtle composition.

The dancers continue to shift in Wright's signature effortless movement style through many mini-climaxes, a pattern which is consistent throughout the work, lacking in a sense of constant building.

A continuous spiralling leads the four to gradually leave Ahl centre stage in a soft spotlight, gradually turning, arms aloft, to the heartwarming sounds of Louis Armstrong's 'What a Wonderful World'.
 

Exposing something very human within his performers is where Wright's direction excels, and 'two of us' (a duet for Lise Manavit and Michael Barnes, originally commissioned for the 2012 Place Prize) is a great example of this.

A contorting, pulsating, caressing Barnes is joined in the soft centre stage spotlight by Manavit's ever-powerful grace. As they intertwine in and out of each other's space, the large expansive material is interspersed with small, well-placed isolations. The two dancers magnetise closer and closer, and pianist Jon Byrne breaks the silence which had engulfed them until now.

The bare brightly-lit stage plays host to unashamedly beautiful choreography, and it's as if we're witnessing two people's private connection, until they filter away and the stage refills with red-lit smoke. The concluding section of 'Just As We Are' is 'all of us': originally 'This Moment is Your Life' for the 2008 Place Prize.

Still in his lab coat, and along with the rest of the cast and a 70's twist, Robert Clarke commandingly explains the experiment that is about to happen, to address the 'self - centred individualism' that makes people not want to risk appearing foolish. All five performers call for fifteen volunteers (again the word is explained), all of whom are given 70's attire and taught disco moves on a loop. The glitter ball, costumes, disco curtain, charisma of all on stage, and disco glasses given to the audience all work fantastically to create an infectious, raucous atmosphere that reminds us that dance is, and should be fun.

In 'Just As We Are', bgroup have achieved a brilliant equilibrium between insightful, challenging choreography, and accessing and entertaining our basic human nature. And of course, to quote one audience member, 'Life is so much better through disco glasses'.