A woman wearing a peach dress and rubber gloves (Lisa Rowley) lies with her back on the floor, contorting and thrusting her body against the leg of a chair as she enacts what appears to be a sex scene. “Honeypie, save me, save me!” she gushes. During the rest of the dance, we see members of the all-female dance team shed metal mouthpieces and high heels, produce animalistic noises, lapse into phases of manic hysteria, and strip down to their underwear.

The repressed housewife/ madwoman in the attic motif has been done to death. Yet it was effectively realised and almost redeemed by the sufficiently subtle choreography, and technical brilliance of the performers from Joss Arnott Dance in their exploration of femininity Record of Events, preceded by another dance show, Threshold.

This may be a gross misreading, but one thing I found intriguing about Record of Events was how women were suppressed not by men but by members of their own gender – embodied in the 'circus-manager', who with her ponytail, black dress and erect posture seemed a cross between an alpha-woman and evil schoolmistress. Granted, the company's dance team is all-female. Still, it is hard not to notice how the energies between the women seem at best reluctantly assenting; at worst, bellicose. As the dancers extend and retract their limbs with masterful control, tensions are built up but never fully released.

Each of the seven dancers – projecting distinct stage presences even when moving in synchronisation – should be applauded for their strong performances, shifting with remarkable ease from sensual pelvic gyrations to aggressive lunges and convulsions. Energy levels remained high throughout both half-hour performances, and the energetic musical rhythms and clever choreography made for fluid transitions between scenes. Credit must go to musical director and composer James M Keane for his varied and percussive musical score, which remained pleasingly unobtrusive during Record of Events.

My only complaints would be the slightly repetitive dance moves in Threshold, and the sometimes unrealised opportunity within both shows for greater experimentalism. But if there were dark ambiguities within the dance narratives, and the moves did not often seem to cohere with their shows' intended themes of invasions of territory and the dark side of femininity, this reviewer likes them all the better for it. The dance movements will make the audience think, and linger in their minds well after the show has ended.