Are Israeli choreographers taking over the contemporary dance world? It certainly seems so.
Brilliant Corners isn't 'brilliant', it doesn't dazzle in an open, overt fashion, rather it fluidly winds and wriggles itself into complex knots and angular flurries, then disperses with the urgent ease of scattered marbles, only to be drawn back together like something magnetised.
The beginning of the piece sees much of this frenetic fluidity. The ten dancers somehow have the nervous energy of a herd of gazelles; quick and sociable, yet oddly distant from each other at the same time.
Wide, yawning silent sections occasionally puncture the dark sound score, making watching harder work, but the dance moves on unabashed. A few notes of a more classical melody are an anticipated relief and remould the ensemble yet again. The lighting at points dims to obscurity, and there the movement takes on a secretive edge, snapshots here and there of activity we're desperate to make out.
Later, solos, duets and group sections give us a chance to get a better glimpse of the choreography; sinuous, yet taught with control, pure dance is mixed with the ordinary act of running, the odd snatch of playful interaction. A glorious pedestrian-ism, with few ostentatious leaps or lifts, just breathtakingly elegant natural movement stretched, slowed, sped-up and syncopated beyond all familiar recognition into something gorgeous.
Emanuel Gat Dance performed at Sadler's Wells as part of Dance Umbrella 2011 - London's festival of new dance - which continues throughout October.
Our reviewer attended the show on a press ticket.
