Underground art: Dancing in the sewers of Brighton

A female silhouette twists and bends in a 20-minute dance in the labyrinthine Victorian sewers beneath Brighton Pier.

A female silhouette twists and bends in a 20-minute dance in the labyrinthine Victorian sewers beneath Brighton Pier.

The performance, entitled Vestige, will be danced today by Rajyashree Ramamurthi, with the help of the musician Colin Waurzyniak and the animator Jeremy Radvan, to the accompaniment of strobe body lights and discordant clarinet sounds. The audience will watch from a special viewing chamber.

The atmospheric performance in the superbly constructed Victorian brick tunnels will launch Architecture Week, a nationwide initiative celebrating the best of British architecture, and Dance Screen Brighton, an international festival of dance taking place in the south-coast city for the first time.

Four other live performances, commissioned by the South East office of the Arts Council of England, will take place over the weekend in Brighton. They include a piece of film art by Eric de Kuyper on Brighton beach, a video and sound installation by Ben Beasley at St Andrews Church in Hove, a live Japanese dance in the Butoh style by Miriam King in a converted Art Deco toilet at the Frank-in-Steine café, and a dance performance at Brighton Unitarian Church which will be viewed through 3-D spectacles.