A phone rings; a warning to turn off our mobiles. Lights. Low, moody lights. Three bodies – two male and one female, in minimal sporty underwear; fit and honed bodies – are curled up on the floor. There is some flexing and contorting of their back and shoulder muscles, a bit of writhing and twitching. A typical start to a contemporary dance piece. Beautiful but bori…

‘Boring!’ A voice booms out. Up bounces the female dancer, and the other two drag themselves up sheepishly. Boring, this is boring, she says… One of the others counter-argues: that was only five minutes, we could easily do that for 15 minutes. We laugh. We’ve been there, on one or other side of the footlights. How better to start the show? Let’s start with my solo, she says. She stands, she dances, stretching  her limbs. The men have put on rehearsal trousers or shorts and baggy T-shirts. The man in the shorts takes on the role of director, shouting up to the sound operator, ‘ play track 2’. A schmaltzy tune comes on, something about love, emotion, devotion. The dancer glares at him. Cut. That won’t do.  Cue Hallelujah. A duet between the woman and the man in shorts. All going fine until the other guy decides to join in, singing from the pulpit, revealed at the rear of the stage when he pulls back the blacks.

Contemporary? aims to both send up and celebrate the Lithuanian contemporary dance scene. When I read that in the programme, I feared it might be too specific and not translate, but never fear, it is universal – every experience any of us have ever had in the rehearsal studio, anywhere at anytime, is here on this stage!  The agonised tag between getting your own way, and fitting in with the group. The alternating of roles as performer and outside eye. The worries that things will be too obscure, or too obvious, the giving of feedback that ends up being hilariously careful not to offend whilst offending. The agonised conversations about costumes: I want a red dress, says the woman – something elegant. She probably has Pina Bausch in mind. You look good like that, it is very ‘dance’, says one of the men, as she stands there in her black underwear. We laugh, of course we laugh…

A favourite scene sees shorts-man doing an impro with props: a bucket, a handful of feathers, a plastic strip, a pair of trainers (‘they’l be high heels, this is just for now.’) The ‘impro’ itself and the discussion afterwards on its meaning (involving the audience) is brilliantly funny. And I love the scene where the woman (still in her underwear) sits out in the audience shouting out choreographic instructions to the two men: ‘ More power – yes! – stronger. More like men! Hup! Jump! Hup!’ They bounce around more and more manically, ending up panting like dogs.

We do, eventually, get the show we’ve seen them making. The phone rings, again – the warning about turning off mobiles. They enter, and we see the reconstruction of the deconstruction. It’s a lovely piece of contemporary dance, made all the lovelier by us seeing what they’ve kept and what they’ve discarded. The bucket and feathers don’t make it to the final mix, and there are no high heels…