Scottish Ballet took a brave decision to perform such a wide variety of pieces and it paid off with a show that was at times utterly captivating.

The show opens with Paul Hindemith's The Four Temperaments , where dancers clad in black and white form fantastic shapes against a blue-lit backdrop. The stage is bare but for the shadows of contorting bodies. As it progresses through representations of each of the temperaments (melancholic, sanguinic, phlegmatic and choleric) it grows more and more urgent, culminating in a breathtaking ensemble finale where the dancers line up in two rows, arms outstretched, pushing against an invisible force that holds them captive, straining but stationary. This piece is beautifully brief; an image that flashes before the eye as it is obscured by the falling curtain, but remains in the mind long after the curtain has gone down.

Sandwiched in between are three short pieces, choreographed by Scottish Ballet's artistic director Ashley Page. Walking in the Heat is a slow, sultry duet first performed by the Dutch National Ballet in 1992. It is followed by 32 Cryptograms , a busy piece set to music dedicated to Derek Jarman and performed against a bright blue screen. The most striking though is The Pump Room , a brand-new piece set to the music of Nine Inch Nails. The staging is as dark and menacing as the music, with the dancers thrashing out of the blackness. The dance often concentrates on one couple, while the other figures pace slowly across the background or loom ominously behind them, heightening the already threatening atmosphere. A black screen slowly rises allowing in a weak yellow light that illuminates the action with a sick radioactive glow then slowly descends, returning the stage to shadow.

The closing piece, Façade , a riot of colour and character, brings warmth to the stage and a smile to the face. Its brightly painted backdrop and cast of caricatures provides a lively and entertaining end to the evening. A series of sketches traversing cultures, its tongue-in-cheek portrayal of dances from around the globe is affectionate and hilarious. From the Swiss milkmaid surrounded by yodelling admirers to the uber-serious tango partners, too self-obsessed to notice their limitations, each segment rattles past like a runaway circus train. It ends with a full cast tarantella, where the exuberantly costumed cast meld into the shape of a toy house, a child's painting in human forms. The gaudy, pantomime-esque finale of Façade may contrast starkly with the cold minimalism of The Four Temperaments , but the closing images of both are equally memorable.