Groundbreaking Belgian-born interdisciplinary choreographer Frederic Flamand, the collaboration of Brazilian designer brothers Humberto and Fernando Campana, and the dancers of France's second-top company have created an intellectually rigorous work as well as a show as spectacular as any modern ballet I have seen.

Flamand has philosophically examined nine of Ovid's rebellious and chaos-igniting Metamorphoses, and viewed and presented them in a way that allows them to question quite probingly where humankind is now. He visits Ovid's Greek myths of Phaethon, Perseus and the Medusa, Pegasus, Diana and Actaeon, Narcissus, Pallas and Arachne, and Medea's quest for youth.

The dancers have added their own interpretational movement, which incorporates and sometimes interacts directly with the Campanas' mainly circular sculptures, and their dramatic costumic additions.

Frustratingly the music is not named but is of often deeply reverberant and percussive electronic and sound is supplemented later on by unexpected conventional instruments, including piano duo, an interwoven sequence of Saint-Saens' Swan (cello and piano) during Cygnus, and latterly at the work's climax, a Baroque chamber group featuring familiar Italian and (Bach) German works.

The sculptures are almost all circular, some multi-dimensional, and mostly suspended above the stage floor, two such discs actually being film projection screens, another the spider's web in Pallas and Arachne, another a rolling wheel. This hardware is reminiscent of Martha Graham's post-war work through to the mid-1960s but in no way did their presence seem anachronistic.

The dancing is barefoot or socked, bar one instance on en pointe, the foundation costumes simple and modern, the additions of metallic or similar hard materials, with Medusa's hair of serpents finding echo or similarity, such as Actaeon's stag antlers among the other Ovid tales that follow.

This seems a substantial work that requires and rewards prior reading from the event programme, which explains the myths although is heavy with Flamand's analysis and pointing up of the philosophical material he is putting into action.

The multi prize-winning Ballet National de Marseilles' director is a formidable presence in the whole creation.

Choreographically, much was logical and attractive but that does not need to be the work's strongest point. There is a totality in the variety of media, excitement in the movement, lighting and the score, and a feeling of powerful connection with the audience. It is a triumph.

It lasts around 75 minutes, there is no interval, it has to be seen rather that read about, and it is also on tonight (Sunday).

The Dome hosts Bahok (carriers), the collaboration of similar length by Akram Khan Company and National Ballet of China, next Friday and Saturday, May 9 and 10.
and 10, at 8pm.