Basic instincts of wild dance

Humans let loose on the great outdoors is a frequent theme of drama. The twist, of course, is that instead of connecting with Mother Nature, and the soft, comforting lull of song birds and babbling brooks, we regress to our pre-civilised state. The untamed landscape is the one in our hearts.

Arthur Pita's Camp is not quite as bleak as, say, The Lord of the Flies or John Boorman's Deliverance, but the 75-minute dance-theatre does start with five bouncy, outward-bound types and ends with unnerving emotional uncertainty.

Camp opens with a touchy-feely yoga girl reflecting on how she's healed her negative karma, how like a flower she feels, how wonderful the woods and trees. It's a good gag, and a sure sign that things are about to go downhill.

They do, and soon. Three biff-about blokes arrive, quickly followed by a foxy chick in stiletto flip-flops. Her wizz-bang figure works its sexual voodoo, leaving our ernest girl to mere dreams of sensuality with the beefiest of the blokes.

The erotic mercury rises when our glamour girl dances with another of the men, and then the three men dance in their knickers, and then no knickers at all.

Sexual couplings and triplings of various permutations take place, followed by a wild dance around the camp fire.

It's at this point that Camp loses its dramatic thread. There's considerable blurring of who wants what and how they want it, and almost everyone seems to peg out, although for no obvious reason.

The Portuguese Pita, who once danced for Matthew Bourne, makes ingenious use of his props, and draws some nice choreographic and musical parallels between the seasons of love and Vivaldi's The Four Seasons (the Nigel Kennedy version).

However, he needs to better marshal his dramatic energies, and then Camp will deserve its extra-long return visit to The Place.

Until 14 May. Information: 020 7387 0031.

Arthur Pita Open Heart: Camp