Yellow, by Jonathan Mangosing who joined HKB last year from San Francisco Ballet showed four couples going through different phases in their relationships. This was an accomplished, well-structured piece, which made good use of the dancers’ strengths and showed emotion as well as technique. Mangosing has a facility for creating steps and the ability to coordinate a group of dancers effectively. I look forward to seeing more from him.

Yuh Egami’s Collage of One made effective use of video combined with one dancer on stage. The switches between video and live action were neatly done and the device of a rose having its petals put off and then put back together was clever, but after an intriguing start the piece did not seem to go anywhere, although Chen Qing was impressive in the solo male role. Li Yi Ran appeared to have taken the idea for Nothing from her recent experience participating in the Ms Asia pageant. In a comic first section, three “girls” (herself plus two male dancers) pose in tutus and compete desperately for the limelight. The mood turns more serious as the trio reflect on the emptiness of what they are doing before finally flinging away their tutus and liberating themselves. There was little actual choreography and as in Li’s previous pieces for the company this was entertaining in its way but felt more like cabaret than dance.

In Dejalo Donde Estaba (Leave It Where It Was) Carlo Pacis abandoned his usual witty, lighthearted mode for a rather intense look at relationships breaking up. Pacis is an experienced choreographer and showed his facility in putting movement together and creating groupings, but the music became monotonous and the extremity of the women’s mourning seemed more on a par with death and disaster than being dumped by a boyfriend . There was more gloom in Brett Simon’s Bete Noir in which an obsessional man ends up hanging himself. While overly grim, the choreography included some impressively intricate double work and the piece was strongly performed by Nobuo Fujino and Kyoko Tomimura. Selina Chau’s Footprints was apparently inspired by a Chinese film called The Sun Also Rises and familiarity with the movie might have made it easier to follow. What emerged was a kind of mini Chinese Gone with the Wind – the scale was laudably ambitious for a short work, with a lot of scenes and characters crammed in, but left the audience somewhat bemused as to what it was all about. The costumes, by Chau and Eve Chan, were extremely attractive.

In complete contrast to the rest of the programme came two promising first works from members of the corps. Li Jia-bo’s Ambush was a dramatic tale of wartime heroics, reminiscent of old-style Mainland ballets like Red Detachment of Women and heavily influenced by Chinese dance choreographically. This style is closer to the repertoire of Hong Kong Dance Company or troupes from Mainland China than to that of HKB, but the work was well put together, established its characters strongly and brought out the best in its dancers, led by Chen Qing and Wu Fei-fei. Aurora Kwong’s Man Woman Man conjured up shades of William Forsythe – two couples dancing gymnastically to driving electronic music. The choreography was well made and Wu Fei-fei and Ye Fei-fei were splendidly cool, sassy and sexy, partnered strongly by William Lin and Wei Wei.

Dancers : Chen, Fujino, Tomimura, Wu, Ye, Lin, Wei.