Sydney Dance Company’s latest double bill is all about the power of eight, with circles and the tug of the moon thrown in for good measure. But if that all feels overly mathematical, cerebral or mumbo jumbo mystical, think again. And if Taiwanese choreographer Cheng Tsung-lung’s Full Moon, for all its visual beauty, was ultimately impenetrable, at least to this reviewer, Rafael Bonachela’s Ocho more than made up for it with a visceral, brooding exploration of urban life.

^{Bernhard Knauer and Sam Young-Wright in Full Moon. All photos © Pedro Greig}

Cheng, as Artistic Director of Taipei’s Cloud Gate 2, comes with impeccable credentials and is the first Asian choreographer to make a work on SDC. His work is often inspired by the dynamics of street life, but the inspiration for Full Moon looks to higher things, and in particular the panoply of myths, legends and superstitions that various human cultures have projected onto the Earth’s silvery satellite.

His eight dancers (he and Bonachela have, unusually for SDC, split the company in half) were ravishingly costumed by Fan Huai-chih who has taken her inspiration from the principles of Zen – especially the...