Shadowland, from American dance company Pilobolus, is beguiling theatre. Part dance, part acrobatics, part circus, part shadow theatre, the show plunges the audience into an evening of inventiveness, unusual physical movement and clever staging.

The show’s storyline concerns an adolescent girl who goes to sleep one night and wakes to discover her shadow. From there, we follow her adventures as she delves further and further into the mysteries of shadow land.

Along the way we meet all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures -centaurs, monsters, crazy chefs, a cowboy and his car, an elephant and a huge hand that transforms the heroine into a dog figure. All these characters appear as silhouettes on screens, as the performers twist and contort their bodies into various shapes.

The silhouette of the dog-girl is the most persistent image. The dancer (unnamed in this review as there were no programs available) achieves her dog-girl shape by simply bending an elbow to form a dog snout, and using her hand to form an ear. But other images also remain in the mind’s eye - a castle, the heroine made headless, a huge cooking pot, and the final shadow-postcards from New York and Australia.

The narrative is really very slight and there is little logic in the way the episodes follow on from each other. But what is fascinating is this show doesn’t hide the means by which the shadows are made. The main shadow screen sits on stage but doesn’t fill it. We can see banks of lights and dancers manipulating machinery at the sides of the stage, and sometimes we get a glimpse of the array of projection equipment that lies behind the screen. Surprisingly, this peek behind the scenes doesn’t take anything away from the magic of the show; it simply creates curiosity about the technical aspects of the performance.

The intriguing name, Pilobolus, refers to a kind of fungus whose spores apparently move with speed, accuracy and strength. The Pilobolus dancers also move with speed, accuracy and strength. They are wonderfully trained. The men are muscular; the women have their own kind of power. All move with incredible grace and lyricism. The dancers occasionally perform in front of the screen and these moments show us the dancers’ exceptional skills and, in particular, their outstanding partnering techniques. But they also make us wonder how such beautifully-honed bodies can transform themselves into such weird and wonderful shadow-shapes.

An appreciative Canberra audience cheered, whistled and clapped along at the end. It was a night of crowd-pleasing entertainment.