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This was a very Brechtian experience in the purest and most effective sense of the term. The technicians were on display throughout, the dancer only sometimes. Sound checks and warming up, small amounts of fiddling with costumes and explanations, all a seamless part of a riveting performance. The dual-lingual text was fed through individual headphones, creating an intimacy and focus, aided of course by being spoken in one of the most poetic and seductive of languages, Welsh. The text was moving, complex, thought-provoking and funny.

The visual aspect was enhanced by a series of flat computer screens interlaced amongst the audience. A true post-modern experience that enabled the audience to become an agent of the performance by choosing to watch what was on stage or on the screen or to focus on the sound, both outside and inside the headphones. Somehow, nothing was missed in the process, but everything became comprehensible. The set was effectively the stage side of a flat with a door through which light could be projected or not as needed. It comprised a rostrum, thrust into the centre of the black box that is the Linbury stage: it reminded me of the second act of Noises Off when the audience view is suddenly reversed and one sees the set from the point of view of the performers. Camera operators crawl on stage or track the action from the side of the rostrum. One is simultaneously aware of watching, of being watched and the process of watching; no suspension of belief necessary here.
 

The work, as the title suggests, uses technical movement and its vocabulary and definitions to illustrate the tragedies and highlights of Welsh history from 1256 to 2007 - and succeeds! It unites dance theory and practice and manages to throw in a massive sweep of history and politics to boot. Even if the audience were unfamiliar with terms such as kinesphere, the planes of movement and bound and flowing movement, this would work. The alliance of these physical concepts with the broad and narrow sweep of historical time, the personal and the political is nothing short of genius.

Eddie Ladd's tiny, androgenous frame manages to encompass kings, dynasties and colonies, traitors, social climbers and wronged women. Jeans and a t-shirt and a discarded jacket are irrelevant as , such is the presence of this women, we see ruffs, skirts, cloaks, swords, frock coats and whatever else is required.

Cancel everything that you have planned and see this work.