Sakoba Dance Theatre has always been an exciting company to watch, with its blend of African and contemporary styles. This is mainly down to their founder, Bode Lawal, but he has six very good dancers to interpret his imaginings, and, although they fit well into an ensemble, each had a very distinct personality and physicality.

Okan’Nijo (One) takes us on a long journey through different aspects of Lawal’s choreographic repertoire. It opens with the powerful Jackson Pinto staggering alone around the stage. Then, to a regular beat from the two on-stage drummers, the cast glide into a mysterious ceremony, the movement regular and almost hypnotic at times. Towards its climax the piece develops into a wild, but still disciplined, dance, with a final burst of virtuoso tumbling like a gymnastic floor exercise from Pinto.

Lawal himself only appears in the long solo Steal Away. It was made for him by Namron, a former dancer I remember well from the glory days on London Contemporary Dance Theatre. It’s a beautiful piece, full of reaching and yearning gestures, centred on an achingly sad song from Peter Gabriel. Bode Lawal is one of the most riveting performers you can see, and here he ages before our eyes, eventually with a stick to support him. I asked Bode afterwards whether Steal Away is based on a particular experience, and he told me that Namron had taken the death of his father as the inspiration.

Finally, Respite, Lawal’s latest work. Each dancer enters repeating the same phrase in an unknown (to me) language. There is a lot of vocalising as the piece progresses, and the choreography is further from Africa than that of the opener.

Dancers writhe and knot together, pulling and grabbing, in a sort of ecstasy.

It’s full of beautiful, exciting passages, in which the cast blend and separate, in what must be a very exhausting piece to perform. Well wo