DANCE is one of the oldest forms of story-telling, right back there with the ancient bards of legend – a simple but meaningful way to communicate feelings, tell tales and make connections. It is inherently musical, inviting us to share in the experience.

Yeovil-born James Bamford, the inspirational young choreographer and director who founded his company Project Dance when he was only 14 (he is a mere 21 now!), has drawn on our instinctive response to music and the urge to dance together, to create an exciting, sad, thoughtful, provocative, engaging and joyous dance theatre work, BUSK.

The new full-length piece, with an original score by Charles Harrison, another Somerset artist, had its premiere at the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham, and came to the Westlands entertainment centre in Yeovil for two nights, before continuing the tour to Sevenoaks in Kent and ending at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter.

The outlines of the story are simple – Hugo has a bar, Fox and The Fiddle, a fiddle he plays for dancing in the bar, a beloved daughter Isla, and an ex-wife Lauren, whom he still loves. Outside the bar, there is a busker, whose fiddle playing is so infectious and emotional that soon the whole bar is dancing to his Celtic-infused music.

Hugo, like a lot of people who work in bars, sometimes drinks too much and the alcohol exacerbates his fragile emotional state. He is both profoundly touched by the busker’s playing and drawn to his enigmatic presence. But he is also jealous and angry of the way the busker attracts people – including Lauren and Isla – and he smashes the busker’s fiddle.

Everyone is drawn into the story by the music. A pub singer (Frankie Griffin) provides a powerful commentary and gradually Lauren comes back to Hugo. The work ends with a wild and joyful dance involving the full 40-plus cast whirling and stomping.

The central characters are played by four brilliant young performers – Ricardo Ludgero Souza as the busker, Eddie Zickerman as Hugo, Alice Hatfield as Lauren and Poppy Potter as Isla. Musical theatre students Eddie and Poppy have both appeared with Project Dance in several previous summer shows; Alice is currently studying at London Studio Centre; Ludgero has professional experience including playing a Munchkin in Wicked 1 and 2.

The word charisma is too often bandied about, applied to anyone who has an appealing personality or colourful appearance – but in his young male leads, James Bamford has fpund two exciting, powerful, athletic and charismatic dancers, both able to communicate deep emotion without ever tipping over into caricature.

The female leads are similarly impressive – Poppy Potter’s Isla is a free young spirit, with feather-light movement; Alice Martin shows real empathy and maturity in her subtle portrait of a woman battling the complicated feelings of a mother and an ex-wife who still loves the man she left.

One of the most compelling things about BUSK is how damn good the story-telling is – James Bamford says in his writer’s note in the programme that “BUSK truly felt like a story that already existed” – it was his job to translate it into movement. And he has done that, powerfully.

It inevitably makes you think of Matthew Bourne, today’s greatest storyteller in dance, who says it his job to tell the audience a story that they can follow. He told a Guardian interviewer a few years: “You need to have a passion to tell that particular story.”

It is no idle compliment to link the names of Bamford and Bourne – and as a side-step, it is no great stretch to picture Bamford’s Hugo and Busker in Bourne’s famous Swan Lake.

Photographs by Len Copland