National Dance Company Wales: Frontiers review – a pair of puzzlers

Matthew William Robinson, artistic director of National Dance Company Wales, is about to leave Cardiff to take over Maltese company ZfinMalta, and his half of this double bill is a swansong of sorts. August is billed as a work about moments of “profound personal change” and evokes feelings of uncertainty rather than conviction.

A long strip of red light stretches across the top of the stage. It pulses and starts to recede. Is this time ticking away? A life force? Half an hour later you may be none the wiser. The mood is cold, lonely, exacerbated by a soundtrack from Torben Sylvest, who has previously worked on glitchy, claustrophobic backdrops for hip-hop artists Botis Seva and Ivan Blackstock. There are solo characters, looking into the distance (wondering about that light, probably), hard-to-see duos tightly woven on the floor, briefly a mass of bodies moving as one organism. There are also some passages of meaty movement, and some very good dancing, especially from Niamh Keeling, who has the ability to dig deep into a churning phrase and then hit all the sudden full stops. Overall, the feel is earnest, without revelation or communicable emotion; still looking for a higher purpose.

Skinners by Australian/Javanese choreographer Melanie Lane is a more transformational journey. First, here comes a gang of club kids wearing long white robes with outfits printed on them (by Don Aretino), odd hairpieces and stockings over their faces, like shamans at a stick-up. They move in mechanical unison, as if you’ve set up an algorithm and pressed go, halfway between ritual and music video, to a looping synth soundtrack.

So far, so faceless. But it all changes when they shed their outer layers, and the masks, and dive into human connection, carrying each other’s weight with care in slow swells of movement. As a depiction of an escape from the digital life to the reality of the flesh, it works, even if the idea then plateaus. In the end, it’s not the most dynamic of evenings, but this small company are always presenting something new – sometimes it works, sometimes not so much – and you wouldn’t want to dim their questing spirit.

• At the Place, London , until 9 October. Then touring until 20 November.