“Limerence” is a heart-rending work by Annaliese Macdonald. First created in 2022 for the company’s digital season, Macdonald has reworked it for the proscenium stage. The stage is pared back, save a set of glowing smoke orbs and a coat rail hung with black blazers, as soloist Ana Gallardo Lobaina in a little black dress and socks sauntered towards Joshua Guillemot-Rodgerson, who stood in blue light, shirtless, and with an air of mourning. The dance, set to Schubert’s piano trios is a pas de quatre of insecurity, doubt, and abandon. Katherine Minor, so expressive with her cherubic face and doe-like demeanour was a glimmer of hope, of new love, while Lobaina, with her long, graceful limbs embodied both passion and despair. They tussle and fall into each other, swapping partners, increasing emotional friction, and by the end, all seem disconsolate, spectral emblems of love lost.

The final piece was the superb “Dextera,” by Scottish Ballet resident choreographer Sophie Laplane, in her trademark quirky, experimental style. The beginning is perhaps a little laboured, a ‘doll’s workshop’ kind of set-up, where the puppet masters, in red gloves, marvellously manipulate the other dancers. The Scottish Ballet really show off their contemporary technique here, with stunning body isolation and control.