On Saturday at the Backstage Theatre, Longford, for the third year running, Anica Louw presented the results of her week-long Arts Council-sponsored Choreographic-Composer Workshop for young Irish professional and graduate dancers. Once again this revealed the wealth of dancing potential which sadly has little or no outlet for its talents.

The ambitious objective of the Workshop is to produce a new work within a week, which this year resulted in a contemporary piece by Amanda Gough, Touched, to a percussion score performed live on stage by composer Gary Hammond. The nine dancers suggested sculptural forms in groups of three or singly, with attractively-danced solos by Lise McLoughlin and Rionach Ni Neill. The latter also gave a fine performance of the interesting and demanding solo by Daniel Larieu to Stravinsky's Violin Concerto Aria No.2: Pour L'Instant, an Homage to Nijinsky. She was less successful as choreographer of Solo For Frances to the music of Plague Monkeys, though Frances McKee worked well in it and it could improve with further work as, like all the original pieces, it was created in a week.

A fourth contemporary piece was Sue Hawksley's Windeater to music by Vershki da Koreshki. For the full group, it seemed to lack motivation and shape, while the only piece in which ballet figured was an embarrassing attempt at satire by Stuart Beckett to Nat King Cole's Let There Be Love.