FROM the darkness three figures emerged. Slowly they made their way towards us, down a narrow, white plastic sheet, appearing to be sinking and pulling their feet out of mud. The movements also looked distinctly space-like, like astronauts on the moon.

James Batchelor began this work two years ago, inspired by the letters of his great grandfather that had been sent home from the Western Front in France during the First World War. “Faces” has become a literal and abstract exploration of the themes of faces and masks, war, displacement and making sense of things during and after wars and across time.

Set to an eerie yet meditative soundscape created by Morgan Hickinbotham, the dancers, dressed in white T-shirts with their faces printed on the back and pants resembling army fatigues moved towards a row of sandbags, clearly a trench. They donned blank, clay masks, modelled on their own faces, similar to what returned soldiers, disfigured in the trenches, had done. In this case, the masks removed almost all of the dancers’ vision, which made their precision even more impressive. They shuffled in perfect unison – rhythmic patterns that conjured up gunfire and marching, before slowly falling and being dragged in and rolled across the sheet.

Batchelor often uses long repetitions of movements or dance phrases and in “Faces” he has done so again, to great effect, with almost the entire routine performed in deliberate, slow motions. This allowed the dancers to really explore the movement and Batchelor retained an air of contemplation that suggested he may still find some new extension in his movement or meaning in the repetitions.

The piece required precise ensemble work. Balance was important, as was physical strength, as the dancers threw, pulled and carried the sandbags around the stage, creating a fine cloud of dust. As it drifted across the stage, catching the light, it at once looked like morning fog rising and the dust of a battlefield, it was quite a beautiful effect and juxtaposed a peaceful aesthetic with the heaviness of the subject.

By moving at this slow and heavy pace, Batchelor portrayed the waiting during war and suggested the burdens carried both on and off the field, seen and unseen.

The dancers came together throughout, pausing briefly to recreate beautifully composed photographs, frozen in time on battlefields and in trenches. Ropes strung around the dancers conveyed the duality of burden and bond of mateship.

When orange witches’ hats were brought onto the stage it was jarring and a little odd. Only a washed out colour palette had been used up until then. It wasn’t until the clay masks were placed over them and the witches’ hats arranged to represent an area of danger or a site where something untoward has happened that it made sense, at the same time, bringing a stark modernity into the work.

The physicality, structure and staging and the use of space, worked well in “Faces” and as the performance reached its conclusion, the dancers were separated on stage, in various depictions of the legacy of war.

Overall, the impression was of a beautifully staged and produced work, with thoughtful dynamics creating suspense.