Choreographer Meryl Tankard’s new work is very beautiful to watch and listen to. Of that there’s no doubt. It’s rather less easy to hold on to.

The title is an ancient Greek word that refers to an opportune moment; the time for action; a decision. Kairos feels the very antithesis of that. It is a work of fragmentary images and suggestions, many of them opaque. The effect was like water slipping through one’s fingers or a half-remembered dream.

Dancers Taiga Kita-Leong, Lillian Fearn (foreground) and Cloe Fournier in Kairos. Photo © Régis Lansac.

At the beginning of Kairos, Jasmin Luna painted white concentric circles on the floor and when done, lay down in the centre to a soundscape of nature and distant voices as if sunbathing.

A little girl, Izabelle Kharaman, entered, walked around the circle then covered her ears, the implication being that what was to come was frightening to her. Intimations of calm mingled with apprehension continued as dancers appeared dimly in the backgound before making themselves more clearly visible.

Kairos was co-choreographed by its six adult performers seen, particularly in the first half of this 50-minute work, as separate forces....