Charles Hutchinson previews an ambitious triple bill of modern dance bound for York Theatre Royal.

SEA, land and city, past and present, all fuse together in Phoenix Dance Theatre's new triple bill at York Theatre Royal next Friday and Saturday.

Inter Vivos spans three decades of dance in the 80th birthday revival of Robert Cohan's Forest, the UK premiere of Didy Veldman's See Blue Through and the world premiere of Eng-er-land, choreographed by Phoenix artistic director Darshan Singh Bhuller.

"One of the translations of Inter Vivos is that it's like a gift from one generation to another, and that's related to us having a piece by a dance master, Robert Cohan, who is 80 this year. With our revival, Forest is being passed on from one generation to the next as a gift," Darshan says.

"Robert sent Charlotte Kirkpatrick from London Contemporary Dance Theatre to teach the steps because at the age of 80 that's the last thing he wants to be doing, and then he came in to work with the nine dancers for a week to refine it.

"It was a great opportunity for the company to work with someone who was pretty much the founding father of modern dance in Britain."

Cohan's meditative work was first staged in 1977 - Darshan's first year at college, incidentally - and will be the second piece in Inter Vivos. It represents the land element in the show's theme of sea, land and city.

"It has a very mythological feel to it and reflects Native Indians and animals' relationships with the forest. It's very animalistic, but you just have to make up your own thoughts on a piece that's full of love duets. Being animals and humans, that's what we're here for: to re-produce," says Darshan.

"The soundtrack is amazing with the sounds of birds, thunder and rain, and that really tests the dancers to move without natural music, because they're not relying on a percussive beat and have to watch each other intently."

The sea piece, Veldman's See Blue Through, opens next week's programme by the Leeds dance company. "I saw Didy's work in Lisbon about four or five years ago danced by the Gulbenkian Ballet, and I just thought it was wonderful. I hadn't seen a piece for so many years that touched on so much; like Forest, but with sea rather than woodland," says Darshan.

"We've got this amazing set with 30 ceiling mirrors, which create the effect of the ocean surface, and it's also like a Picasso piece, with the mirrors creating all sorts of angles and lighting effects."

This abstract work, with its stretch Lycra costumes and water imagery, was inspired by Didy's pregnancy. "The idea came to her when she had a baby and water inside her," says Darshan.

His latest contemporary piece, Eng-er-land, is designed to be a humorous counter to the abstract duo that precedes it. "I felt we needed something amusing to end the show," he says. "In 25 years of touring, I've seen lots of Friday and Saturday culture, and rather than getting depressed by binge drinking, we're making fun of it and laughing at ourselves in this piece.

"We absorb so much of this culture that we laugh at how we pile up on the curry and lager, then find a club and have more lager, and then try to have relationships with each other... for one night."

Phoenix has linked up with York graphics company KMA for Eng-er-land. "They build search engines and recently worked on the BRIT Awards, so they come from a very different culture to us, but they wanted to do something involving theatre and performance, and it's been great fun to melt the two cultures together in rehearsal," says Darshan. "It's difficult not to be dwarfed by video screens but we've found a way to do it, integrating our dance with KMA's fast scenes. They create a cartoon world full of clichs but as ever with clichs, there's truth in there."

Phoenix Dance Theatre, Inter Vivos, York Theatre Royal, May 13 and 14, 7.30pm. Tickets: £11.50 to £15.50, students and under 25s, £3.50; ring 01904 623568.

Updated: 16:24 Thursday, May 05, 2005