Sometimes, when you’ve spent several hours, or even days, with people of words, all of us trying to articulate, share, negotiate and navigate the circumstances in which our different dance cultures evolve, you need to experience some art that gives credence to all the theory. On the last night of my stay at Oriente Occidente (a day after the Assembly itself has wrapped up), the two shows on the programme were billed under the festival’s ‘gender Issues’ label. It was with trepidation that I booked my tickets: would there be more discourse and not enough dance? I need not have worried. In both performances the term ‘embodiment’ took on true meaning and the sine qua non of a riveting narrative – ‘show, don’t tell’ – could be felt in all its craft and power.

In Strong Born, by Kat Válastur, three women, towels draped round their necks, position themselves in a circle distinctly marked out on the stage like a wrestling ring. Their swagger, baggy tracksuits and muscular physiques hint that we are in for a breakdance battle, and the first moments, as they stretch and limber up to a percussive background soundtrack, seem to confirm that hunch. But as the temperature rises, the women begin to unzip their hoodies and rip open their trouser legs, and by some ingenious sleight-of-hand, without missing a beat, they magic their urban outfits into ceremonial garb with a distinct Amazonian flair. Ceaselessly, and with increasing vigour, the three intensify the impact of their rhythmic moves by slapping and slamming what seem like castanets, miked-up and affixed on their arms, wrists, knees and crotches. The floor too is amplified. This potent concert of movement, body percussion and unison was inspired by the translation of the name Iphigenia (‘strong born’), as well as Euripides’ eponymous story of sacrifice. The archaic northern Greek fire-walking ritual called Anastenaria was also a source for Greek-born, Berlin-based Válastur. Her intent to create a dance that ‘aspires to transform a demand for sacrifice into a rebellious resistance against it’ is a sensational case in point.

Sacrificial ritual was also at the centre of singer, dancer, choreographer and writer François Chaignaud and visual artist Théo Mercier’s Radio Vinci Park. This time, the victim only narrowly escapes. Chaignaud’s extravagant performance, whose prelude is baroque harpsicord played live and coda is a motorbike stunt that sees him almost crushed, runs the gamut of a dancer’s attempt to use all ploys and guises to entice, then implore her partner – a leather-clad, helmeted, stock-still figure straddling a motor bike – to react, to show a flicker of emotion. Seduction, song, anger, submissiveness, veils, ankle bells, clacking heels, balletic head tilts: Chaignaud runs the length and width of (feminine) dance throughout the ages, sharpening the timeless, tragic plight of the love-crazed heroine. But his incredible range of performance skills mean his increasing rage at being flouted feels so real that, within the proximity and dinginess of the underground public car park setting, he burns like a fire and takes your breath away.

Both shows offered a crystal-clear prism through which to perceive the depth of the multiple dimensions, past, present and possibly future, of the ‘gender issues’ at their core. They gave me an unforgettable, physical frisson and final takeaway for our wonderful Assembly.