A HIGH calibre autumn season continues at the Lighthouse in Poole next week when award-winning dance comes to the venue for two nights.

The Siobhan Davies Dance Company, one of the most highly regarded ensembles in the business, is bringing its latest production, Birdsong, to the arts centre.

The show is a vivid mixture of film, lights and dance, accompanied by music as varied as jazz and baroque, classical to digital sampling.

Siobhan, whose parents-in-law live in Sydling St Nicholas near Dorchester, explains: "The dance will take place 'in the round' which will give the audiences the opportunity to get very close to the dancers.

"Another part of the production is improvisation, where the dancers can make the choice how to do something in their particular section, which means that the audience will be right in front of people making their individual decisions how to dance a certain piece. It really is unique."

She adds: "We have worked on the piece for a long time, but people still sometimes collide or do things unexpectedly. But we are at our peak and when you are right in the middle of a piece, as a performer, you get so caught up in it that it transmits itself to the audience and when that happens, the excitement is tangible. There's an immediacy about it which is much more rewarding. It's much more present and of the moment."

Siobhan burst on to the contemporary dance scene three decades ago and has since won several awards for her art, including the 1993 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Dance and the prudential Award for the Arts three years later.

In 2002 she was awarded a CBE in recognition of her outstanding contribution to dance.

You can see Birdsong at the Lighthouse, Poole on Friday and Saturday, October 29 and 30 at 8pm. Tickets are £12.50 plus concessions - call the box office on 01202 685222.