Not just skin deep

Dana Gingras unpeels a deep and throaty chuckle when asked if she and Noam Gagnon, the two halves of Canadian dance outfit Holy Body Tattoo, are partners off-stage as well as on.

'We get asked that so often and we take it as a compliment. But no - though we've been fondling each other professionally for 13 years. The partnership works because we both take the same kind of risks and we're both really extreme people in our own way.'

It's an easy assumption to make. Their show, Circa, which marks Holy Body Tattoo's London debut as part of the Barbican's BITE season, comes dripping with brooding sensuous imagery and descriptions along the lines of decadent, seductive debauchery. Gingras and Gagnon get down to an assortment of passionate entanglements for a full-on full hour - to do that, you have to get on pretty well.

Gagnon agrees: 'We may be only dance partners but we blend so well together. In fact, we spend more time with each other than we do with our lovers. We share so many secrets.'

The Vancouver-based duo have been Holy Body Tattoo - a name drawn from the idea that powerful experiences leave marks on the soul - since 1992 after meeting at an audition. Trained as contemporary dancers, HBT's Circa marks a radical departure for choreographers who had carved an international reputation based on full-throttle physical gymnastics. They've left the crash and burn behind to tackle the tango.

'Modern dance is an area associated with free expression,' says Gingras, 'and tango is very controlled, very withheld - and it also involves being on two feet. We were desperate to get off the floor; we'd spent so much time rolling around on stage we'd been dubbed the Children Of La La La!'

That they've been compared to Canada's most renowned dance export (La La La Human Steps) is testimony to the waves Holy Body Tattoo are making. Stylish and drop-dead sexy, Circa is a daring break from the traditional Argentinian tango shows that pop up on the international stage.

'We're not trained tango dancers - that can take a decade - we're contemporary dancers using tango for something else, for our own ends. It's basically our take on tango,' says Gagnon. 'The language of tango speaks about relationships - it really does take two to tango - it's push, it's pull, it's the whole give and take. But it's understated; it's never fully said.

Throwing themselves wholeheartedly into a new technique with intense training in Paris - the city of romance makes its presence felt as an evocative filmed backdrop - the duo plunge deep into human relationships with an emotional candour rare on the modern dance scene.

'When you have two people on stage, it's a relationship,' says Gingras, who describes herself as the conceptual half of the partnership, while Gagnon handles the details. 'And, for us, tango is a vehicle to explore the nuances of a relationship. On subtle levels, it seems to contain the truth about intimacy and connection. Circa refers to the idea that we go round and round in relationships and often end up where we started.'