New Moves Across Europe.

Engrossing, entertaining, and occasionally infuriating: New Moves Across Europe, Glasgow's festival of new dance established in 1988, has developed from fledgling days often dominated by marginalized performance art styles into an influential member of the European dance network.

Not that one is ever likely to see here the kind of mainstream European work found at festivals in Montpellier or Utrecht. Reflecting the city that supports it, New Moves programming still has a raw, uncompromising edge. The creative process, for example, is celebrated to the extent that a work-in-progress is often showcased alongside finished pieces; but the quality of work has displayed increasing maturity over the years.

Since its inception, New Moves director Nikki Milican has also sought to develop ongoing relationships, regularly premiering the work of artists such as DV8's Lloyd Newson and Laurie Booth, as well as introducing to Britain the likes of Wim Vandekeybus. This year, Brussels-based Les Ballets C. de la B. made its third New Moves appearance with Alain Platel's deeply disturbing Bonjour Madame, comment allez-vous aujourdhui, il fait beau, il va sans doute pleuvoir.. ("Good Day, Ma'am, how are you today, nice weather, it's sure to rain..."), and Compagnie Januari from Rotterdam returned to present the final part of its punishing Roberto de Jonge-Maria Voortman trilogy, Quest For Rest But it was Booth who launched this year's event with a performance of River Runia Lone, an improvised solo in his signature style - a combination of virtuoso martial arts pyrotechnics, and movement of limpid fluidity.

In all, twenty-three choreographers were represented at this year's festival, with the work of Portuguese dancemakers featured to coincide with Lisbon's reign as European capital of culture. Portugal's contemporary scene is little known, but to judge from the work on show in Glasgow the country has a lively network of independent dancemakers, with a very different style from their counterparts in neighboring Spain. Mediterranean exuberance here seems tempered by introspection, while religious imagery abounds.

In Clara Andermatt's O Cansago dos Santos ("The Weariness of Saints") - a highly charged duet set in the aftermath of a drunken party - these images surface in much muttering and signing of the Cross. But the ferocious speed and searing intensity of Andermatt's choreography is brought vividly to life by Amelia Bentes and Monica Lapa, her two fearless dancers. And, while Francisco Camacho's solo, Nossa Senhora das Flores ("Our Lady of the Flowers"), may not be a literal response to Genet's homoerotic masterwork, there are at least enough references to sex and religion to merit his use of the title. He sweeps across the stage in an extravagant blur of movement, cross-dressing from rapturous celebrant to Madonna figure. Whatever drives this provocative potentate along, guilt doesn't seem to be part of the trip.

Not all of the artists seemed ready for international exposure. However, Miguel Pereira presented a well-crafted essay in Auto Retrato ("Self Portrait") as he shifted from the repressed restrictions of a dark suit to the expression of a free and (literally) naked spirit, confronting issues of ender and sexuality with an hones as refreshing as his dance.

Of the company pieces, Paulo Ribeiro's Le Cygne Renversd ("The Backward Swan") was by far the best. Defined and muscular, his dance moves to its own internal rhythms, lending the piece a vital, if strangely acerbic edge - a quality common to much of the Portuguese work.

It would be nice to report a similar vitality in the British dance on show this year, but these days most of the country's independent choreographers either seem obsessed with design at the expense of content, or content that barely constitutes dance. Ironically, it was Fiona Wright - a performance artist - who provided the most satisfying British dance work in Touching Jonah, a slyly minimalist piece that appears to feed off pop-culture images. Indeed, in her stretchy foundation garment and black pants, it's hard not to see the stubble-headed Wright as a postmaterial Madonna. Especially when she starts slow-motion vogueing, sucking the fingers of one hand as the other grabs her groin. A parody of Madonna doing a parody of Michael Jackson - who says performance art isn't accessible?