Catapulted beyond the realm of artistic, Momix have escalated the art form of dance into a science.

Friday's opening night for the company of seven dancers was at times mesmerising, at times dizzying, sometimes funny, sometimes puzzling - and always exciting, energetic and beautiful.

I could review the performance in a single word - Wow! - or even the same word repeated a few times - Wow, wow wow!

Artistic director of the company and choreographer of most of the pieces, Moses Pendelton shows a keen sense of physics. Not only of body movement and form but also of light, space and depth of space.

In 'Sputnik' dancers fly on stage in such smooth and gentle undulations that you can almost see the breeze and feel it, while the starry skies in the end meld with the giant Xs-come propellers-come windmills in 'Pleiades'.

The heavy use of props created much of the intrigue in the pieces as dance moves seen thousands of times before now appeared completely different. Utterly engaging I wondered if my mind was playing tricks on me.

I think my mouth fell completely agape while watching 'The Wind Up', an almost dizzying performance with a lone dancer and a silver orb. Was the spinning really that much faster than the millions of pirouettes I've seen on stage before, or was it just that orb? And it's genius the mind that can conceptualise this, to envisage in your mind's eye that if you move in this way at this speed under this type of lighting, the effect will be this.

Not any less interesting was Mr. Pendleton's use of depth of space in depicting movements like swimming and skiing. Performed theatrically the audience was moved to laugh in 'Under Water Study #5' and 'Millennium Skiva'.

The skill and strength of all the dancers was positively awesome and shone through every piece but I was particularly struck by the sense of balance necessary in 'Millennium Skiva' - a high tech depiction of two skiers who do the dance with ski boots and skis on. This gave new height to being on pointe especially for dancers who are already tall.

The programme opened with a lone dancer with an oversized hula-hoop, which, like a clock's ticking never stopped its mesmerising circular rotations, yet she danced quite separately within it. Much like the physics lessons on how the earth has its own rotation, while at the same time orbiting the moon.

Obviously fascinated by the look of Indian religious ideology, many of the pieces show heavy use of multi-armed beings with many hands, long fingers and lotus positionings.

The music used in the dances seemed so integral to the way in which the various stories were told that I was surprised when in the end I read my programme and discovered that they were not specifically created for the various pieces.

But as I mentioned earlier, lighting was almost as intriguing as the skill of the dancers in some of the pieces and none more so than the finale piece 'E.C.'. Here two dancers moved seamlessly in front of and behind a screen with rear projection enabling them to create an array of illusions ranging from big hairy spiders to Joan Miro figures.

At a time of year when our reviews tend to feature an abundance of superlatives, I'm almost at a loss for how to best describe this modern dance group from New York but so many people there on opening night used the same word my date did when he turned to me and said: "Cathy they are absolutely fabulous."

So that's it. Momix were absolutely fabulous and we all look forward to the Bermuda Festival luring them here again, and soon.

CATHY STOVELL