The curtain is drawn back and the audience is greeted by a transparent screen, embellished with a projected image. The theatre is seemingly transformed into a cinema.

The back of the stage becomes lit and the two male dancers come to life to the accompaniment of modern electronic music.

Champloo dance troupe take their name from the Japanese word Chanpuru, which means to mix an unusual combination of elements to create surprising and astonishing outcomes.

In this respect, they do not disappoint.

White Caps is full of contradictions and juxtapositions, which are aesthetically mesmerising yet, at times, jarring and lacking in momentum.

Set to a score that ranges from upbeat modern electronic to mellow and serene classical, the dancers inhabit the music and their environment in a production that combines film and theatre.

The filmed elements present a physical and psychological journey that commences in a forest, and symbolically concludes on top of a mountain.

The filming took place in and around Bristol, with the use of green screens to make the landscape more dramatic.

“The choreography is often inspired by the landscape” said Wilkie Branson, dancer and director.

The jaunty physicality of the dancer’s movements is emblematic of a dance style that is heavily influenced by break-dancing. This creates a clash between music and movement, which is at times beautiful and at other times uncomfortable.

White Caps offers a fusion of landscape and dance, vulnerability and strength, and contemporary and street in a show that’s greatest strength lies in its refusal to play by the rules.

- Camilla James