Daniel Linehan, Sadler's Wells, Lilian Baylis Theatre

Photography is linked closely with memory. Photographs help us recall family, friends, holidays, and it can attest to an event. But one could argue that it actually serves a purpose of forgetting. As we are immersed in a digital age, the photograph becomes a series of binary numbers which doesn’t exist until it is written or printed, and which can be erased as easily as it is captured. Photographs are now as close to human recall as technology will allow. Daniel Linehan's Montage for Three last night was a perfomance piece which tried to address that.

Two dancers, Linehan and Salka Ardal Rosengren, strike awkward poses on stage, mimicking seemingly indiscriminate projections of men, women and children. Frame after frame, we the audience are challenged to find the correlation between such photographs as Robert Doisneau’s The Kiss (pictured right) and Eddie Adams’s Pulitzer-winning image of the execution of a Viet Cong officer. But through repetition of moves and images we see that there is no such thing as a narrative to this piece. It is merely a comment on the way that lasting, iconic or sentimental imagery can become absorbed and forgotten, how the impact of a still image can last maybe only seconds longer than it took for the shutter to lag.

I was struck by the choice of imagery – when I was a student of photojournalism I pored over these images. Diane Arbus and Martin Parr being a favourite of mine, I was amused to see their work crop up in Linehan’s choice of imagery and charmed even more by the dancers’ attempts to recreate the photograph through poses and shapes.

My memory had been jogged, those images not forgotten but absorbed into my own mental arsenal of influences, a faded recall. Einstein’s tongue, Marilyn’s pout, Weegee’s murdered gangster were all preceded by a pose and a gesture from Linehan and Rosengren. All seemingly making the point that with the passage of time a photograph loses its specificity. It becomes a purely aesthetic object open to multiple interpretations, only to be lost and replaced by more current or enduring imagery.

Watch a clip of Montage for Three

For me though, Montage for Three wasn’t dance, more of a series of moves or a clever tableau. After 15 minutes I wanted to see less of the photographs and more of the dance and it really didn’t help that the entire piece was set to silence. I admire Linehan’s self-imposed challenge to bring “presence to something which is absent” - however, as a photographer all one can do is mimic the presence of the subject matter. One strives to let the observer try to imagine or remember what it was like to be within the confines of the viewfinder. So to try to recreate it through a series of unemotional stark gestures, surely it devalues the meaning of the photograph?

Linehan’s second piece, Not About Everything, invited the audience to sit in a semi-circle on the stage. I instantly bristled at this – always one to detest any form of audience participation. So, safe in the stalls of the Lilian Baylis Theatre, I was hoping to observe from afar some exciting interactive dancing.

Accompanied by a voiceover repeating “This is not about everything” throughout the entire piece, Linehan spun around mid-stage for 20 minutes. Ballet dancers and those who have training (as I have) will be familiar with the term “spotting” – it is the saviour of the pirouette and it allows you to spin endlessly without getting dizzy by focusing on a single spot. This is not what Linehan does.

The fact that he can spin for that long without throwing up or passing out deserves a medal in itself, but just because he can read from his own artist's statement and drink a bottle of mineral water whilst doing so doesn’t make it dance… which is what he professes throughout. After a while I felt as if I was watching a stunt by David Blaine - only without the abuse from onlookers, as this audience seemed to be enthralled by his dervish style. It was lost on me, I’m afraid, except I was rather hoping he would throw up, just to add a little colour and excitement to the drab grey backdrop.

• Daniel Linehan performs again tonight at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler's Wells
• See what's on at Sadler's Wells. Read Sadler's Wells show reviews

Watch Daniel Linehan perform an excerpt from Not About Everything