Oxford Youth Dance, founded in 1996, is open to any young person who wants to dance, aged between 16 and 25.

There are no auditions for joining, so the standards on show from the 30 or so performers are quite varied.

Judged as a whole though, this was an impressive evening. It began with a demonstration of a warm-up, with co-director Joelle Pappas taking a class from the side of the stage. From there the company launched into a series of ten short pieces, ranging from solos to a full company extravaganza at the finish. This was No Island by Claire Thompson.

Accidental is a solo choreographed in two hours by Cecilia Macfarlane, and danced with stretching arms and writhing hands by Theo Keeping. The Chase is another solo, choreographed and danced by Miriam Garnett. She is a tall and elegant dancer who was inspired by the urgency and tension of Peteris Vasks’ third string quartet. The whole company, split into four groups, took part in Structured Improvisation, a very entertaining piece, in which each group was handed an envelope containing four words to illustrate in a couple of minutes’ improvised dance.

Diversion, choreographed by its large group of dancers, with help from Joelle Pappas, begins with film clips of satnav disasters — cars directed to the edge of cliffs and the like — and then develops as a complex dance piece, with Paul Medley (well known to Times readers) on stage with his saxophone to provide a jazzy background.

Once in a while a dancer from a youth company like this will make it towards the big time. A striking example is 19-year-old Oska Lake Thomas, who has just completed his first term at the prestigious Northern School of Contemporary Dance.

His self-choreographed solo Weltschmerz, expressing the melancholy engendered when reality doesn’t live up to one’s dreams, was a contorted, intense work, danced with considerable technical ability, and riveting to watch.

I predict a bright future for this young dancer.