It could be a schoolroom or perhaps a room in an old-fashioned mental asylum.
There are a couple of lads fooling around trying to 'out muscle' each other - who can jump the highest, stand on their head.
Tracing his way along the beige green wal
l behind them with a piece of chalk is an over-weight man in a woolly hat.
His actions are obsessive, it is hard to read what he is writing.
A girl appears through a door, she a gibbering, juddering wreck on the floor - all shakes and disjointed movements.
But they gradually ease into fluid elasticity - until the school mistress or nurse appears with her neat hair and shoes, all staccato, prim and proper moves with jabbing fingers that order the others to attention.
Her presence is heralded by a vibrating sound like a huge surge of electricity that pushes her 'inferiors' into a corner where they shake uncontrollably.
This is the setting for the captivating drama that unfolds over more than an hour as the power struggle and dynamics between the characters shift and change.
These dysfunctional beings develop relationships - that between the girl and woolly-hatted man is touching and sweet - the lads' need to violate the nurse disturbing, yet surreal.
The dancing is exceptional. It is athletic, graceful and precise.
And there is humour - hope as the captives mimic their superior - to be replaced with horror as the chalk-writing man's mouth is bound and he is dragged squeaking from the stage.
There is a window in the wall. The projected weather changes to mirror the struggle. From heavy rain to sunset, daybreak and finally a clear, blue sky. Bird song and escape.
It is a difficult journey, but also a cathartic one.
Holly Whitmill
Verdict: Ground-breaking dance.
