Beneath harsh overhead lights and to the relentless clicking of an ever-changing announcement board, eight travellers wait restlessly in a departure lounge.

As they watch hopefully for news of their journeys, their limbs twitch with boredom.

Then the claustrophobic silence is broken by the voice of a distressed woman.

Clutching scraps of paper, she needs help but no one will listen. She's from far away but doesn't know where. She believes knowledge of her origins will help explain her identity but all she remembers about her homeland is that it rains.

It's this simple yet poignant concept of home which is the premise for Akram Khan's intensely powerful contemporary dance production Bahok ("carrier" in Bengali).

Khan uses the departure lounge as a place of limbo where cultures cross and clash and this is reinforced by his racially mixed team of dancers who come from Slovakia, China, Spain, Korea, India and South Africa.

Three dancers come from the National Ballet of China with whom this is a collaboration and the rest are from Khan's own company. Most have contemporary dance backgrounds but they also bring a rich palette of styles from their home countries ranging from Indian martial art moves to South African shoe shuffles.

Bahok is the first production Khan has choreographed but not performed in and although it's difficult not to miss his formidable presence, his captivating force of movement more than compensates for his absence. Nitin Sawhney's soundtrack perfectly echoes the exhilaration and uncertainty of Khan's world on the move and is as hypnotic as the urgent and dynamic choreography.

Khan's style of movement has a wild spirit, which sees dancers flinging themselves athletically, whirling their arms like storm-powered turbines and propelling themselves off the floor into thrillingly acrobatic jumps and spins.

As the announcement board flashes up the word HOME the dancers gaze up with hope. But the deeply moving heart of Khan's thoughtful production is the notion that home is moving further away in our increasingly migratory world.