An elaborate if unbalanced collaboration between choreographer Roberto Olivan and composer Riccardo Nova features superb Italian music group, Icarus Ensemble (playing live), and revelatory French dancer, Ilies Benyahya-Ounich. The theatre-dance production, aimed at both adults and children, features four dancers of different generations, but of unequal strengths of expression.

The piece originated with an attempt to make sense of a perceived chaos and confusion in the world, as Olivan explains: “I wanted to create something that spoke of the light inside each one of us, something more difficult to see in some than in others”.

The musical score and theatrical narrative of the piece draws on Hindu mythology, particularly the Mahābhārata, says Nova: “It’s an attempt to capture the intense musical language of the epic poem that initially deals with a descent from purity into decadence. We wanted dancers in sync with its precise, complex structure.” In the Mahābhārata, mantra is key: “As it is a culture that is purely oral, all Hindu music is derived from recitation as a means to reinforce memory and maintain tradition.”

As such, the focus in Gold is on regeneration rather than renewal, says Olivan: “We are living a time in the early stage of collapse that marks the start of a new era, in which our coexistence will be different, more empathetic.”

Benyahya-Ounich, a skilled hip-hop performer with achondroplasia, a genetic condition that is the most common cause of dwarfism, brings wry humour to the piece. His performance makes a striking contrast with the brash and beautiful armwork of flamenco dancer Encarni Sánchez Mesa, in loud conversation with her own gypsy heritage. However, what Gold gains in inclusivity, it loses in the somewhat listless presence of the other performers; Olivan himself representing the eldest and María Arronis the youngest dancer, appear in cohesive roles peripheral in power to those of the others.