The title of this piece means “mountain” in Japanese. Scottish Dance Theatre may not have been able to import an actual mountain to ZOO Southside for this visually striking, quasi-primeval dance-theatre spectacle by the choreographer Damien Jalet, but there is a flat-topped, plateau-like white mound with a black hole at the centre of the stage. Designed by Jim Hodges, it’s quite a set — but it’s what happens on it during this ritualistic performance that would seem to matter.
The first sign of life is a foot tentatively protruding from the hole, then another, followed by legs and the rest of a body whose modesty is preserved by flesh-coloured underwear. The head, however, is covered in a long, clumpy blond wig that renders its wearer faceless. Other, similar creatures emerge from the hole, as if from an insect’s nest or — the most obvious metaphor – as if the Earth has given birth. There are eight altogether. They glue on to each other, like avid organisms having an orgy.
The dancers really go for it. That also holds true for the piece’s ensuing sections, in which they form totemic, Rorschach-like shapes or, after slipping into Jean-Paul Lespagnard’s feathery, fringed costumes, thrash and swirl in a head-banging, geyser-like tribal frenzy. All of this is set to music (by the duo known as Winter Family) that ranges from cyclical engine revving to trance-like organ tones and, eventually, a brief spot of mainly — and no doubt deliberately — unintelligible text.
That unintelligibility may be the key to why I didn’t buy a show that has a certain pop, Las Vegas-like surface appeal but without much pleasure or profundity. And I suspect Jalet intended the experience to be profound. To judge by the audience’s reaction, others may well willingly surrender to his vision. I found YAMA watchable, certainly, but meretricious.
Box office: 0131 662 6892, to Aug 29; DanceXchange, Birmingham, Nov 26-27