Diversions, The Place, London

The Diversions company is in lively form for its spring tour. This modern dance troupe, the national dance company of Wales, has just celebrated its 21st birthday. It has a new home in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

The Diversions company is in lively form for its spring tour. This modern dance troupe, the national dance company of Wales, has just celebrated its 21st birthday. It has a new home in the Wales Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

Roy Campbell-Moore, the co-founder of Diversions, made Between for the company last year. The piece is inspired by Paul Seawright's photographs of the Welsh valleys at night. The dancers stand in silhouette against the deep red glow of the backdrop. They slide to the ground as the lights come up, ready to stretch and slither across the stage.

The line of dancers breaks, spreading across the stage. They arch their backs, swing their legs, catch and hold eye-contact with each other. The mood becomes flirtatious, steps bouncing on to the beat.

Between is rather long, not least because Campbell-Moore arranges solo opportunities for most of his dancers. But they take those solo spots eagerly, taking care over stretched feet and swung shoulders. The whole company looks lithe and alert in Campbell-Moore's bendy, wriggling steps.

The music is traditional, accordion and violin, played by Hoover the Dog. Elizabeth King dresses the dancers in layers of gauze, bandaged camouflage. As the dance goes on, they change gradually into dark silk trousers and tops.

David Dorfman's Oakfield Ridge, made in 1989, has been revived for the company's birthday celebrations. It's a domestic duet that doesn't end happily, but it's a light number, and it makes its points briskly.

This programme ends with a new work. Practice Paradise is a commission from Stijn Celis, the director of Bern Ballet. This is a comedy ballet, slight to the point of vanishing. Celis starts with Les Sylphides. He uses the Chopin score, and suggests the Fokine ballet's woodland glade by arranging three big logs on the stage. There's almost half an hour of Les Sylphides, and Celis struggles to fill it.

The dancers, men and women, shuffle on in dark raincoats, woolly hats and false moustaches. They hunch their shoulders and give paranoid twitches. They sit on the logs, and reluctantly shuffle up to make room for each other. Then they change into red Sylphide dresses, fitted bodices and full net skirts. One last dancer fails to change, but is finally welcomed into the fold. The dancers' energetic mugging puts it across, but there's not a lot here.

Tour continues to Milford Haven and Swansea ( www.diversionsdance.co.uk)