Dance Horizons has been presenting this tapas-portioned mini-festival of contemporary dance for several years, and it deserves to be better known. The short 20-minute slot format encourages artists to experiment (and some ideas are better served in bite-sized form), while nothing outstays its welcome. 

‘Current Accounts’ (pictured) from Spanish choreographers Jessica Castellón and Boris Orihuela gives a vaudevillian take on the nightmare of office culture. Dressed with a nod to depression-era New York, two workers are pushed to the edge of sanity, cavorting and collapsing to a jazz-flavoured soundtrack. A manic voiceover and some stylish slapstick bring touches of surrealism and satire that balance out all the existential angst. 

Jack Webb’s ‘In Endless Edge’ and Mariona Vinyes Ràfols and Adrian Thömmes’ ‘Two People In A Room’ could have been made as companion works, one picking up where the other leaves off. In Webb’s piece, two dancers keep an invisible forcefield of distance as they mirror, examine and feint around each other. Their gestures are subtle but saturated with intention: a reproachful angle of the neck, a reconciliatory turn of the head. In ‘Two People In A Room’ the performers connect like limpets, melting into a series of push-pull tumbles, twists and balances that look almost painful at times. They stand on each other’s feet and shoulders, lean and cling; inter-dependence can be as trying as it is tender. 

Dorine Mugisha’s finale, ‘Joy’, continues this sense of intimacy but takes us into more playful territory. An extract from a longer work, the piece blends passages of gorgeously fluid krump and whacking with games of tig and scenes of family care. Laced with infectious fun, the three dancers are magnificent (though the passages of dance are fleeting and could be longer), celebrating hip hop’s eloquence as much as its joy. 

Innovations Contemporary Dance Platform reviewed at The Studio, Edinburgh; picture by Sarah Pérez Roig.