Just when you think you know who’s hot and who’s not in contemporary dance, just when you’re catching your breath after Dance Umbrella, there comes a showcase work so utterly perfect, that all the parameters shift and you’re privileged to see the bar being raised again. Lulu Mlangeni is back on our stages, and it’s reason enough to celebrate.

Mlangeni hasn’t been on the headlines of dance in the last couple of years. She’s not one of the usual suspects in the litany of dance, and while she’s a senior dancer with Vuyani Dance Theatre, she’s diversified her talents, earning accolades in spheres as diverse as the Naledi Awards, So You Think You Can Dance and Dance Umbrella.

This brand new work, Page 27 is quite simply, astonishing. It’s a diptych, featuring Mlangeni herself in the first part, and the VDT ensemble in the second part. Loosely, it speaks of South African women and the torsion and bruising and breaking they have faced through the challenges of apartheid and in a society scarred by domestic abuse and homophobia. It’s a focus on a 27-page journal, and the celebration of Mlangeni’s 27th year of life.

It casts a moving nod in the direction of Miriam Makeba and Winnie Madikizela Mandela, as it casts a fearsomely fine glance at the universal woman, imprisoned and beaten, victorious and traditional, in a skirt that is a mix of Xhosa fabric and camouflage fatiques and beads that splay traditions old and new, without ever being disrespectful or boring. Mlangeni is oddly androgynous at times, and overwhelmingly feminine at others. She becomes impossible to describe as she flexes and streamlines herself against the very present shafts of light, like God’s fingers through a cloud.

Using text and light as though they are tangible substances, the work is muscular and disarmingly tight, running in satisfying correlation with the music. There are choreographed fight sequences to rival those by Sunnyboy Motau and Rachel Erdos, which we saw a few weeks ago on Dance Umbrella, and there is a reflection of a love-hate dichotomy that is so sophisticated, it transcends verbal description. This is the kind of dance that South African dance audiences deserve: it is beautiful and thoughtful, wise and outrageous, without stooping to foolish gimmicks or obscurity. There is an underlying astuteness in the material: while you are aware of the directorial hand of Luyanda Sidiya you will fight to catch your breath in watching the flow of bodies, light and music. And in the end, the tears and the sweat on your cheeks will be indistinguishable.

This show deserves a full house every night of its too-brief season.

• Page 27, directed and mentored by Luyanda Sidiya, is choreographed by Lulu Mlangeni and performed by Mlangeni and the ensemble for Vuyani Dance Theatre: Julia Burnham, Roseline Keppler, Peter Lenso, Phumlani Life Mndebele, Otto Andile Nhlapo, Phumlani Nyanga and Keaoleboga Shadrack Seodigeng. It is designed by Oliver Hauser (lighting), Veronica Sham (costumes) and Wesley Mabizela (musical arrangements), using work by Dustin O’Hallaran, Steve Reich and Atomos VII. It performs at the John Kani Theatre, Market Theatre complex in Newtown, Johannesburg, until April 5. 011 832 1641.