MELBOURNE contemporary dance company KAGE steps onto the stage of Tuggeranong Arts Centre this week with a solo show by Gerard Van Dyke.

Van Dyke, who is also the creative director for the company, is performing a work called “Picnic”, billed as “part nightmare, part time capsule, part gift, a surreal physical poem”.

KAGE was last seen in Canberra collaborating with Canberra Dance Theatre’s GOLD project in 2015.

Now, combining what the company sees as its signature style of dance and humour, “Picnic” features original electronic music by Alisdair Macindoe and a script by Marieke Hardy that has led to one journalist describing the whole thing as being “like a Michael Leunig cartoon, mysterious and pregnant with invisible meaning”.

The idea is that the great Australian tradition of “picnicking” becomes an analogy for happiness, but “Picnic” also addresses themes of isolation, innocence and in the hands of Van Dyke, who becomes both narrator and dancer.

The performance is the culmination of a a contemporary dance residency in which Van Dyke has been working with Leena Wall, artistic director of Tuggeranong’s urban dance program Fresh Funk.

“Picnic”. At Tuggeranong Arts Centre, 3pm and 7pm Saturday,  April 8. Bookings to trybooking.com/260352