Masochistic performances of repeated torturous movement to techno music have become a tired trend plaguing the young contemporary dance scene. And with sweat and saliva flying across the stage, sitting front row in the splash zone for Wojciech Grudziński’s performance BOW felt similarly symptomatic.

Building on Grudziński’s previous work, the piece is a study in the physicality of the bowing gesture. The audience, seated in three bleacher-like structures surrounding the stage, follow three dancers in a triangle as they staunchly bow – the repeated bend of the knees, releasing curvature of the spine and final whiplash of the head. As tension and speed build with each recurring bow, the dancers’ oversized black t-shirts loosen down their arms and fall off their heads.

The half-naked dancers rotate through different configurations in space, with the agonising bowing gesture slowly mutating into feral endeavours in space. But between the leather skirts with black trainers, repeated sample of Daft Punk’s ‘One More Time’ and sharp white strobe lights, the performance comes off as content made for Instagram: cool and flashy yet lacking in depth.

The performance is still enticing – the dedication and exhaustion of the endlessly-erupting bow movement is hypnotising in its dripping sweat and trembling flesh. But relying too heavily on schadenfreude, BOW lacks the relevant context to make the excruciating bend truly worth it.