Rosemary Butcher

3 / 5 stars 3 out of 5 stars.
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Rosemary Butcher has never been a choreographer to squander her effects. Every idea is worked meticulously, every piece put together by a process of slow modulation. At its best, this painstaking minimalism can induce a trancelike concentration in the audience and moments of rare, hard-won beauty on stage. But getting to those moments can be hard work.

Butcher's style is peculiarly suited to her latest piece, which has been inspired by stories of polar exploration, including Scott's doomed expedition in the Antarctic. White is a journey in which the four dancers trek relentlessly across a bare stage, alone, in pairs or in a group. Their movements make no specific reference to ice or cold, yet their bodies suggest a constant engagement with their environment. A staggering pause, arms outflung, evokes a vicious gusting wind. Quick falls and scrambled recoveries suggest harsh terrain. Around them, a score of electronic drones and blustering weather sounds conveys a sense of doom.

But just as important as the on-stage action is the film projected on the huge screen behind. Here the dancers are duplicated in bleached, attenuated images of themselves. Sometimes they move in slow motion; sometimes there is a few seconds' lag between them and the live performers. The poetic effect is subtle and haunting. This ghostly cast seem far away, locked behind a wall of ice or inhabiting another time zone. They shadow the live dancers as memories, or as future possibilities, and occasionally the bare stage seems clamorously filled with parallel universes.

But the high points of White are too infrequent. During its opening section, the four women in their glumly unflattering costumes seem to have embarked on a route to nowhere. Their moves look inconsequential the pace doesn't build. And while the final few minutes are wonderful - a lone woman sinking into an exhausted collapse, fighting passionately for one last gasp of energy - Butcher has dithered too long for the full effect to resonate.