Rambert at the Theatre Royal Bath

ARRESTING, bewitching, frenetic all at once, Rambert’s trio of commissions for its 90th anniversary shows the company still has the appetite to nudge boundaries.

Beginning at the end, it is the finale, Lucy Guerin’s Tomorrow, which truly encapsulates the company’s fearless pursuit of experimentation. Presented on a split-stage, the piece inhabits the dark and menacing world of Macbeth, giving physical life to the psychological conflict that led a hero-turned-villain to murder. Veering between tension, fragility and sheer abandon, the eerie witches’ sinister danse macabre, as they writhe and jerk to the glare of a baleful light is spellbinding.

Juxtaposed against the witches’ rite is a uniformed ‘regiment’ of dancers, acting out scenes from the play with an intensely dystopian feel.

Flight by Malgorzata Dzierzon uses a moving set and multimedia projections to create an ever-shifting backdrop as the dancers dramatise the mix of hope and fear that make up the migrant experience of leaving one home to search for another. Trapped between the panels of a spinning carousel of concrete walls in a hugely memorable scene they push and pull erratically, trying to breach boundaries.

The mournful scores lends itself beautifully to the magnetic and visually striking choreography.

In Hydrargyrum, the triptych's piece de resistance, Patricia Okenwa explores ideas of connection and disconnection, the individual and the mass. A giant, revolving mirror hangs over the stage, offering a different angle to view the dancers as they morph from a powerful group to defiant but vulnerable individuals.

After a frantic first half zeroing in on an anonymous gang zipped up in long and stiff neck collars obscuring their faces, the dancers shed their uniforms and are left drifting; their movements grow heavy, deliberate though at times stunted too as they embark on a reflective dance.

Three distinct but hugely affecting performances – here is to another 90 years.