Mel C’s debut as a contemporary dancer is impressive: How did we get here?, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed

‘We hope you enjoy the performance,’ announced the Tannoy before the lights went down for How did we get here? – the accent being put on ‘hope’, as though enjoyment was unlikely. I took a deep breath in anticipation of modern dance at its most portentous and pretentious, my expectations already depressed after imbibing some hot air from a note in the programme – ‘we feel our power, all the way to the edges of ourselves’ and so forth. How did we get here? Or should that be What am I doing here?

But what transpired was a thing of simple beauty: spare, precise, lucid, free of wanton gimmicks or histrionics. The choreographer Jules Cunningham (they/them) has previously worked with the companies of Merce Cunningham (no relation) and Michael Clark, and their interest in the dynamics of subtle gesture and the slow extension of limbs is something richly explored here. Emotion is not semaphored; nothing is emphatic; the atmosphere is meditative, introverted, with music treated freely.