Brighton Festival has a strong record of debuting world class contemporary dance and this year seems no different with This Bright Field, an expansive work by Brighton-based choreographer Theo Clinkard.

With no words or clear theme, the show is potent with symbolism, each section making sense in sequence as an apparent metaphor for animal and human progress. Emerging lifelessly from the aisles and clambering on stage, the dancers wade incrementally through viscosity, like the emergence of an undeveloped life-form making the evolutionary step from sea to land.

Breaking free from their stasis, the 12 dancers show few human characteristics, erratically bouncing off one another before coalescing and herding towards a Godlike flame. There are more clues as one performer is born naked from a silver chrysalis, writhing and pulsating, stretching her sinews for the first time.

Joined by the troupe, also naked, they connect with caresses and murmurs, eventually breaking into a tribal ritual, the first signs of a developing community. The march towards civilisation concludes in the final section as they protect their modesty with striking pink hakama style robes, becoming more organised and coordinated, and breaking out into a harmonic mantra.

Bolstered by a doom-laden soundtrack and arresting use of backdrop, lighting and silhouettes, This Bright Field glows with the extraordinariness of life on earth.

Finn Scott-Delaney