DANCE

Jonathan Burrows performs at The Place Theatre (0171-387 0031) 15-17 April, and at the Dancehouse Manchester (0161-237 9753) 6-7 June

A week before opening and Jonathan Burrows still has no idea what to call his latest work. ''We've been calling it Quintet simply because it's got five people but that might not actually be the title." The piece will be performed to a live score by the American composer and music writer Tom Johnson and includes spoken text. Will the text be live or recorded? Er, Burrows hasn't quite made up his mind about that. ''We're hoping it's all going to be live but we're actually still working on it. Those kind of decisions are usually made once you get on stage during the last week.''

This apparent uncertainty is typical of the choreographer's fluid approach. ''I was originally going to do this piece in silence because I was interested in the idea of letting the rhythm of the dance speak for itself. But I changed my mind when Tom Johnson came up with an idea that caught both our imaginations. It's a piece for bells with text. He was originally going to use firebells with a mallet but now he's using different ones. I've not seen them yet; they arrived from Paris yesterday.''

Burrows's free-flowing creativity means that his group always has a new work-in-progress. His three nights at London's Place Theatre will be a double-bill of established work (the acclaimed Stop Quartet) and the new short untitled piece. ''It's much more interesting to create the next evening of work little by little. I don't think this current piece will develop, but it will form part of a longer piece. It happened with the Stop Quartet because we performed the duet before we made the quartets. I don't think it looks modular, even though it's duet, trio, quartet; I think it's seamless. It's just a really practical way of working.'' This careful, piecemeal approach gives birth to Burrows's spare, intense choreography. The result is often dubbed minimalist but Burrows seems uncomfortable with the term. ''I don't think the dance piece is minimalist: it's just economical''.