James Wilton is a young man with a growing reput-ation, and some important awards already in the bag.

He is a graduate of London Contemporary Dance School, as are all but one of the dancers in his company, but he has moved a long way from the style of contemporary dance performed, for example, by Richard Alston and Rambert.

His is a violent vision, acrobatic and pretty dangerous, as dancers hurl themselves at each other or twist in the air when parallel to the stage. The music he uses is powerful rock, which adds to the frenetic atmosphere. Contemporary dance is intentionally earth-bound, but Wilton goes further, with the floor itself becoming part of the choreography.

Last Man Standing is a piece that “explores the fragile nature of existence”. Wilton says that he has been influenced by the book The Last Hero, by Terry Pratchett, and by the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

Pratchett’s book is the 27th of his Discworld novels, a very complex plot involving the attempt to destroy this world. It’s hard to see a literal connection in Wilton’s piece, but the aggression, the constant struggles, the abrasive relationships, the exhausted collapses, certainly put over the general feeling.

The first episode in the second act is called The River Styx, a clear reference to the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, and indeed, from this starting point, we cross that river into the realms of Hades.

We don’t follow any story, but hellish it is, with even more agonised and dramatic dance, clearly influenced by martial arts, breakdance and capoeira — a stylised Brazilian martial arts dance. In between these periods of terrific energy there are moments of calm, with the dancers prone on the stage. How grateful they must be for these short respites.

Of the six dancers four are men, including the charismatic Wilton himself. They are a powerful force. There are two women, and Sarah Jane Taylor is outstanding as a figure of deep suffering; writhing, twisting, contorting her body, until at the end she finds peace — or, perhaps, death.