In this gruelling, moving work, Israeli-born Jasmin Vardimon looks at the Holocaust, and, by flitting backwards and forwards in time, she examines how children reared on survivor stories become ‘memory-candles’. The work also highlights how easy it is to move from the abstract to the horrifically real. In one of the few lighter moments, set in the present, two men and a girl look down from a lifeguard’s tower (which most of the time serves as a concentration camp watchtower) and discuss which buildings they would tear down because they don’t fit in. In a matter of moments, they are talking of eliminating humans in the same way.

But, for most of the time, we are in the horrific atmosphere of the camp, brilliantly created by the use of huge piles of discarded clothing; relics of those who have vanished. During an impassioned duet at the opening, a conductor, who later becomes a guard, explains how he is the servant of the music (Hitler’s favourite — the Tannhäuser overture) and how the people in the camp are also his to manipulate. The work is relentless in its depiction of humans at their lowest ebb, whether prisoners or guards. Many images linger indelibly in the mind; the guards examining the prisoners and simply throwing rejects on to the piles of rags; black bin-bags stuffed with clothes raining down on dancer Yunkyung Song, who gives an outstandingly moving performance. She rips the bags open; all the clothes are red, and as she stands among them she appears to be standing also in a pool of blood. A golden girl, presumably an inmate who has collaborated, dances in high boots while the rest writhe on the floor. Finally bodies are piled high on the heaps of rags.

This is a sombre piece of physical theatre rather than dance. It’s a riveting, almost overwhelming work.