A thrashing punk riff heralds the start of Wendy Houston’s latest work, a tribute to former collaborator and friend Nigel Charnock who died last year. As the music thrums she bolts onto the stage, running in circles before disappearing again. And so begins a show that, although constructed from futile acts and asinine platitudes, resonates with a sharply felt sense of the attempt to ‘make sense of it all.’

It is fascinating to watch as each section of the work uncovers the range and depth of pointlessness, with Houston espousing empty metaphors and dancing throw-away actions, all set against a back-drop of clumsy computer projections. In doing so, Houston draws on some of Charnock’s work’s notable features – his break-neck, looping, lilting stream-of-consciousness monologues and his arrested explosive actions – as if she is trying to recall his presence and channel his verve on to the stage. Though Houston is also firmly present, a defiant if meandering figure. There’s a halting reticence in her voice as she leaps from idea to idea, from statement to statement searching for a way to pin down any sort of meaning. The effect is kind of punk-Beckett, and the world on stage begins to dislocate, casting us adrift into no-time and no-place.

Amongst this estrangement though there is also a fierce humour, seen in simple and playful actions. Straight-jacketed and masked in a cardboard box Houston tries to dance a routine that she seems to barely remember, leading to the sense that she is out of her depth, that it is all too much.

The crescendo is a lonely and desperate duet with a plastic fire bucket, its bright red inanimate form swung from the crook of Houston’s elbow. At the peak of this duet Houston flings handfuls of the contents into the space, for all intents and purposes the contents look like cremation ash. These moments, because of the painful ludicrousness of them, become deeply moving, a kind of frustrated DIY visual poetry. A desperate fuck-you to the world. But it might all be for nothing, for Houston slips back into the same old routine, the same old repetitive metaphors, lost and alone on stage. And so, Pact With Pointlessness reaches a kind of apotheosis, conveying a visceral sensation of that strange state in the face of grief: the cloying numbness that masks a kernel of barely noticeable rage.

The Hive, from fledgling company Human Zoo, takes its lead from the dystopian fantasies of Huxley and Orwell. The Hive is the last subterranean bastion of human kind, the world above poisoned by war and conflict. Guided by the system controller’s desire to avoid conflict, each individual lives alone in an 8’ x 8’ ‘cell’, only connected to each other by computer terminals. Central to the performance is the gradual ‘liberation’ of one citizen from his ‘freedom in segregation’.

Dystopias are rich settings in which to explore notions of individual freedom and collective responsibility, and Human Zoo make a good attempt to explore some meaty issues, though at this stage of the work’s development there are still a number of issues to iron out, not least of clarifying the purpose behind what is in essence a technological and sociological morality tale.

The strongest parts of The Hive are the scenography and lighting, particularly the small illuminated, wooden frames that serve as computer screens, and the movement sequences, which are underpinned by a youthful, if slightly unfocused, energy. There is also a lovely child puppet that manages to encapsulate the ephemerality of the future hopes tied up in our children and our dreams. In contrast the other puppet objects are less developed, and technically the puppetry needs a much firmer external eye to shape the life of the objects.

The script, by artistic director Florence O’Mahony and performer Nick Gilbert, is a rare and bold attempt at blending verse and prose, managing at times to provide an underlying rhythm to the drama without being too intrusive. At other points though it is rather clunky, and not helped by the more illustrative movement sequences. There are also a few unresolved plotting issues that undermine the logic of the world, particularly towards the climax of the piece.

Performer Fleur Rooth, as an increasingly conflicted agent of the state, does a good job in finding a much needed pathos, serving as the most immediate way into the tensions of the dramatic world; whilst Matthew J Morgan’s detailed physical work helps him find a greater trajectory than the writing allows.

The Hive proves to be an ambitious attempt to meld a range of techniques and styles, and whilst technically the fusion has some potential at this stage it is in need of a tighter and more robust directorial and dramaturgical eye.

As a side note, Human Zoo represent an increasing trend of companies emerging from non-HE/tertiary training contexts, in this case the cast of The Hive come from training with the National Youth Theatre and/or London-based repertory-training company Fourth Monkey Theatre. In the face of significant HE fees this is possibly going to become a more common route for ambitious and proactive young artists. Whether this will grow into a successful alternative to more established avenues into the profession remains to be seen, but it could prove an interesting addition to the training-mix in the UK.

What is most striking about James Thiérrée’s fifth production for Compagnie du Hanneton is not the sheer scale of the ever-transforming, decaying set, nor the exquisitely-controlled and detailed physical scores of the performers, but the fleeting and shifting surrealist world that Thiérrée has crafted in this 90-minute spectacle.

Almost steampunk in feel, this is a world in which iron girders, mirrored panels, antique sewing machines and giant organs roll freely across the stage on numerous thick castors. Amongst this the human figures struggle to orientate themselves, take control of each other, and abandon themselves to ecstasy.

Thiérrée’s world is rarely static, so a deft female chorus swims across the stage on steel chairs, Thiérrée languidly reclines in a decaying armchair stumbling blindly towards some imagined vision, and a scampering contortionist hangs gargoyle-like from a dense wall of scaffold pipes. This continual momentum is occasionally punctuated by frozen tableaux or sudden blackouts.

Contributing to the hallucinatory experience, both light and sound take on a life of their own. Individual objects suddenly illuminate amongst the darkness, or the scratched writing of a pencil expands into a deafening score accompanying the decay of Thiérrée’s character’s mind.

In interview Thiérrée is evasive as to the themes of the work, and just as the physical world transforms time and time again, breaking down and reconstructing itself, so too do the possible themes. In one moment Thiérrée may be the curmudgeonly king of this world, ruling with nonchalant disdain, only to crash in into Lear-esque madness; or he might sit self-absorbed, puffing intently on an ostentatious pipe; whilst at others the ensemble of six dancers take central focus crafting a hallucinatory struggle with the crudely industrialised environment. This disorientating journey constructs a delicate and sometimes unwieldy behemoth of an experience.

In Tabac Rouge, the animation and intrinsic life of the objects in the space trace echoes of the great Polish artist Tadeusz Kantor; echoes that are further developed in the apparent autocracy with which Thiérrée’s character shapes the action within the world. But Thiérrée’s control is illusionary, and at the heart of the work is the power that this world has. Although at the climax of the work Thiérrée appears to have the world at his fingertip, literally, around him the rest of the cast are swallowed whole – leaving him alone, like a defiant Canute facing a sea of visions.

1980 is one of the seminal productions of the late 20th Century, and in retrospect a production that once seen makes the nature of contemporary performance become a little clearer. Not only does it clarify the myriad ways in which Piña Bausch carved a distinctive figure in theatre and dance, but also hints at many of the subsequent features of prominent British theatre-makers. The boldness of the mise en scène, here in 1980 a carpet of grass and a fake deer; the playful arrangement of fragments of human interaction, here a collage of games and competitions; and the sharp social observations of the lives we lead.

In the last decade, since the staging of Kontakthof with people over the age of 65, Bausch has also led the way in using dancers of various ages. This has become more and more important since her death as, in spite of the loyalty Bausch engendered in her performers, fewer dancers who worked on the original pieces still dance with the company. In this re-staging of 1980, a wide mix of dancers from the original work and more recent company members create a breadth of ages that adds another layer to its meditation on the games we used to play as children, and still play as adults.

1980, despite its length of over three and a half hours, and complex layering, is simple in premise. Nineteen dancers, assisted by a magician and gymnast, play games, compete with one another and parade for the audience. What makes this work so captivating and remarkable is the careful balance that Bausch achieves in the juxtaposition of the carefree jouissance of the games and competitions with the sombre restraint of fragments of social dance. It is this collision of these two tones that creates the pathos of 1980. The naive, joyful and sometimes wilful attitude of the game play is reminiscent of a freedom we are rarely allowed to experience as adults, a kind of paean to the frustrations of maturity. Equally, the images of deadpan dancing couples hint at the anaesthetised existence that faces us if we deny our capacity for childlike exuberance.

One of the most delicious parts of 1980 as an experience is the shift of rhythms throughout the work and the way these rhythms play against the images Bausch and her dancers shape. The – now iconic – sunbathing scene, for example, in which the dancers twist and shift their bodies into increasingly contorted positions to catch the rays of the sun on different body parts, sets the humour and ridiculousness of the positions against the rhythms of a lazy sunny day. This is emblematic of Bausch at her finest, re-framing everyday activities with careful precision to elevate apparent mundane simplicity into striking examples of human frailty, shaped with careful artifice but without descending into the artificial.