SINNER, Performance Space 122, New York

Anyone who wants to see what British physical theater at its finest is all about need look no further than Performance Space 122, where a piece called SINNER by a group called Stan Won't Dance has taken over the upstairs space through Sunday. I saw it Wednesday night, and thought it the best dance event of the season.

Physical theater can mean theatricality expressed through movement, with or without scraps of language. SINNER has a substantial text — almost an outright play, and a brilliant one — by Ben Payne. But it is inconceivable apart from its movement.

The choreography is by Rob Tannion and Liam Steel, who founded this company (along with its executive director, Ellie Beedham) in 2004. The two men initially danced SINNER, but Mr. Tannion is currently preoccupied with the choreography for the musical version of The Lord of the Rings. His place has been taken by Ben Wright, a Matthew Bourne veteran. Mr. Steel is wonderful, alternately sniveling and assertive, and it's hard to imagine Mr. Tannion doing a better job than Mr. Wright. This is rough trade, up close and personal.

SINNER is based on the sad story of David Copeland, who exploded three nail bombs in London in 1999, with Afro-Caribbeans, Pakistanis and gay men as the targets. The most damage was caused by the last, in a gay bar called the Admiral Duncan, with 3 deaths and 80 injuries.

The 70-minute piece moves from an initial flirtation into darker, more desperate territory. Martin (Mr. Wright) is tall, muscled, confident; Robert is nervously apprehensive, riddled with physical tics. There is humor here, but always with an edge, and then the mood turns ugly. Martin seems more and more threatening, sexually but also consumed with rage against the whole world. Robert bides his time.

The text and the movement are both full of repetition and colloquialisms. Though born of natural, everyday actions, the dancing is precisely rehearsed — every duck and feint and lift and tumble, every reaching out of an arm that could be a threat and could be a caress.

The piece is subtitled "A self-destructive solo for two men". Roles (and the accompanying texts and actions) shift back and forth, and at every change, the material takes on a new meaning. The end is horrifying, first overtly, then implicitly.

Ruth Finn did the set, and lan Scott the lighting, though there is oddly no credit for the disturbing collage of club music, electronic sounds and snippets of classical music. With its smoke and tumbled chairs and subtle video effects, the scene eerily evokes a side room of a club in which sexy, bad things can and will happen.

That atmosphere is reminiscent of DV8 Physical Theater's best-known gay works, both filmed: Dead Dreams of Monochrome Men (these physical theatricalists sure are good with titles) and Enter Achilles. Both of Stan Won't Dance's founding principals were in Enter Achilles, and the influence of Lloyd Newson, DV8's founder and the first great master of physical theater, is everywhere profitably apparent.

The result is a profoundly, involving, upsetting experience. After unleashing an ovation, the audience sat stunned, whispering cautiously, as if fearful to stand up and break the spell. If you want something utterly outside the dance norm, in style and quality, this is for you.