Among the plethora of international dance and physical theatre performances at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe is a handful of productions by British artists. Dancing on Your Grave is the work of Lea Anderson, a contemporary of Matthew Bourne and the artistic director of the all-female group the Cholmondeleys and its men-only counterpart, the Featherstonehaughs. The Blank Album is by Natasha Gilmore, once a core member of Protein Dance and, like Anderson and Bourne, a graduate of the London dance conservatory Laban. Each production was an enjoyable mingling of dance and live music executed by a handful of game performers.

Dancing on Your Grave is a small-scale, cabaret-style entertainment aimed at non-dance audiences. Anderson’s brief was simple and macabre: what happens when a music hall act bases its performance entirely on death? The dancers Maho Ihara, Gabrielle McNaughton and Ryen Perkins-Gangnes and the musicians – Anderson’s long-time collaborator Steve Blake and the Flea Pit Orchestra’s Nigel Burch – are billed as the “corpse de ballet”. Attractively costumed by Jess Hooks in period garb, this palefaced, deadpan quintet is confined to a raised, square stage flanked on both sides by Simon Corder’s stark neon lighting.

The dancing, while certainly adroit, seems supplementary to the music. Blake, on banjo, and Burch, on ukulele, each wrote their own tunes, yet in terms of style they dovetail perfectly. The pair comes across like unhappy undertakers whose songs are clever litanies of weary woe featuring such lines as “Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder” and “With my luck I’ll be reincarnated as myself”. My sole cavil is that all the morose, gruesome charm has nowhere to go. This agreeably one-note, one-trick pony of a show will tour the UK next spring.

Rooted in the ego-driven excesses of rock’n’roll culture, The Blank Album is a more raucous affair that initially seemed to throw the Fringe audience of which I was a part off-balance. Was this a flaky comedy, a pop musical or what? Eventually the penny dropped that Gilmore’s skilful all-singing, all-dancing cast – Jade Adamson, Stuart Bowden, Laura Durrant, Simon James and Ruth Mills – is both sending up and celebrating stadium concert behaviour without neglecting more recognisably human feelings.

The five also play instruments ranging from guitar (and not just the air variety) to violin and cello. Their energetic efforts are pinned to beaty, bouncy and occasionally tender compositions by Quee Macarthur of the progressive Celtic folk/acid band Shooglenifty. In a cheeky touch, a CD of the show is available afterwards for £5. An extensive UK tour starts September 27 at Arts Depot, London and continues till next May.

Tour information: www.thecholmondeleys.org; www.gilmoreproductions.co.uk