To the Kaai Theater Studios this evening to watch the P.A.R.T.S. (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios) annual graduation tour. An international school founded by top Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, P.A.R.T.S. offers a full time four year programme of training and research in contemporary dance. After four years, the students get to create and perform work, and it was such works that we went to see this evening. Two pieces stood out for us. One was a piece, Fragments, by Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker herself (together with pianist Alain Franco) and in which six male students had worked for five weeks in composing and improvising moves. They were clearly having a lot of fun and that exuberance came across to the audience as they glided between individualistic solos and collective patterns. The other was the innovatory ‘Behind the sun’ he repeated ‘where everything is everything else’, created and performed by a Croat, Pavle Heidler, and an Australian, Eleanor Campbell (in the picture). They chanted improvisationally, whilst gradually shifting forms, shapes and positions (with cleverly shifting lighting helping with the overall effect). It was brilliant. Afterwards, at the bar, with De Keersmaeker sat at ease on a table chatting to dancers and members of the audience, we got to talk to the personable Campbell, who told us that rehearsing for improvised pieces takes far more effort than rehearsing for a set piece. What particularly fascinated was the symbiotic way in which she and Heidler followed one another between synchronisation and desynchronisation. Indeed, the piece could only work because of that.