DANCE : Movement with missiles: there must be a catch somewhere

JUGGLING and dance were not obviously made for each other. When dancing, most practitioners would agree, it helps to keep your hands free. And what kind of juggler wants to worry about hip-twists and foot-flips when keeping five balls in the air is hard enough already? If the Gandini Juggling Project had never happened, frankly no one would suppose they had missed anything.

But company founders Sean Gandini and Kati Yo-Hokkala (a juggler and a Finnish dancer-cum-gymnast respectively) seem to have had something more than an arty alternative-circus act in mind. What they saw in the best of juggling - the elegant arc of a trajectory, the rhythmic flow of catch and throw - is a direct kinetic relationship with contemporary dance. If they could bring these disciplines up close to each other, perhaps something interesting might rub off. It did.

"... and other curiOus Questions" (the hanging title and dodgy typewriter are Gandini hallmarks) is their third collaboration with Gill Clarke, one of the most sought-after dancers on the contemporary circuit and leading light of Siobhan Davies's company. Clarke is the Gandini's greatest asset, producing moves so fluid, clear and compelling that dancing comes to seem quite the most natural way to travel while manipulating various missiles. The work begins and ends with pure dance, Tai Chi-like, slow-motion sequences that act as an Oriental obeisance - the before-and-after bow - to an hour's activity that stretches the performers' concentration (and the audience's sense of wonder) to the limits.

Once the aerial ballet begins, what looks simplest is often most effective - though it might be the most devilish to pull off. Five jugglers walk through a brisk formation dance, spurting a steady stream of translucent clubs high above them like a Roman fountain. A straightforward one-man juggle becomes a brain-teasing marvel when an extra pair of hands joins in from behind to suggest a multi-limbed Indian god. A soloist performs a delicate, brooding routine with quoits, blending toss-and-catch with an absorbing dance-exploration of empty circles, looped onto arms and legs and linked and unlinked like a Chinese puzzle.

At best, the show achieves a visual poetry that is quietly breathtaking. But the spell is broken with every dropped catch. These are not many, but the merest slip produces a sickening clunk that can shatter the glassy continuum for minutes at a time. Given that the Gandinis set themselves such formidable tasks, it is hard to know how this can be overcome.

Recent additions to the Project are a handstand virtuoso and an aerialist, and while their contortions are physically very impressive, they seem somewhat at odds with the original idea linking dance and dexterity. A duet which had both dangling about at the top of ropes to the song "Tea for Two" was particularly obscure. And if the Gandinis have such a thing as a best friend, they will already have been told sotto voce that spouting R D Laing on stage - albeit tongue-in-cheek riddles about ignorance and stupidity - is a no-no. Dance and spoken text combine about as biliously as wine and Scotch.

It was a good week for ex-proteges of Siobhan Davies. At The Place, another of her star dancers was stretching his wings as director and choreographer of Small Bones, a company that covers very similar ground to Davies's own. Like his mentor, Douglas chooses to work directly from the body's expressive potential, rather than applying movement to illustrate a theme. And the results are quite beautiful - rigorous, lyrical and often intimately sensual. But it helps if one has never seen Davies's hit of 1995, Wild Translations, set to a string quartet by Kevin Volans. I am sure Douglas's The Songlines (1995), set to a string quartet by Kevin Volans, was a case of great minds thinking alike - the score in each case is stunning, so why not? - but the dance itself induces a strong sense of deja vu.

The Songlines encompasses images of Aboriginal journeys, hot landscapes and herds of migratory animals. (Davies's piece was tribal villages, hot landscapes and swarming insects.) I hope the world is big enough for both of them, for Paul Douglas is without doubt a dance-maker of distinction. Perhaps, though, he might one day allow himself a touch more narrative content. In A Heart Undone, danced around Oona Grimes's detailed anatomical etchings, the programme primed us to find murderous elements of the Bluebeard and Snow White stories. What I saw was fluidly intricate movement - intriguing, but utterly abstracted. A few more clues would not go amiss.

Gandini Juggling Project: Frome Merlin Theatre (01373 465949), Thurs. Small Bones: Southport Arts Centre (01704 540004), 22 Mar.