Ronin review – Yukiko Masui’s swordplay choreography is exhilarating in its cut and thrust

The Place, London
This audiovisually immersive, anime-inspired dance piece is full of stylishly fluid movement and thrilling fights and face-offs

Some contemporary dance can make you feel like you need a master’s degree to even enter its zone. Yukiko Masui’s Ronin is not at all of that ilk. Take the kids (the age recommendation is 10+), take your un-arty uncle, take people who are not dance insiders, and they are not going to feel excluded. It’s a show.

It is a show, even so, with its own arcana – samurai swordfighting, anime references, video-gaming – and its own mystique. And running through the switches and jump-cuts of its sundry scenes is the slender thread of some kind of metaphysical quest.