Dance: Tempting and triumphant

London City Ballet
Resurgence
choreography Ashley Page, Kenneth MacMillan, Arielle Smith, Christopher Marney
dancers Alina Cojocaru, Cira Robinson, Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla, Arthur Wille, Alejandro Virelles, Joseph Taylor, Isadora Bless, Nicholas Vavrečka, Miranda Silveira, Bárbara Verdasco, Jimin Kim, Nicholas Mihlar, Ayça Anil, Ellie Young
music Jennie Muskett, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, John Adams, Gabriel Fauré
lighting Andrew Murrell • projection Duncan McLean
costumes Emily Noble, Stevie Stewart
Sadler's Wells, London • 11-14.Sep.24 ★★★★

Almost 30 years since it was disbanded in 1996, London City Ballet returns to the stage at Sadler's Wells with an eclectic array of dance. And the programme also includes short documentary films that, like the dance pieces, explore the company's history and look forward to the future. In some ways, this feels like a graduation performance, with students showing off their serious skills on a blank stage that shifts with coloured lights and expressive costumes. It's also a joy to watch, uniformly fluid and buoyant, with moments of sharp impact.

Nearly forgotten, Ashley Page's Larina Waltz was created in 1993 to showcase principal couples during a tribute to Tchaikovsky. The old school choreography is fizzy and bouncy, as five pairs take turns in the spotlight, leaping and twirling, then coming together to make a group impact. Kenneth MacMillan's Ballade is a gorgeous piece for guest artist Alina Cojocaru and three men who are sitting around a table. The guys take turns making her float weightlessly around the stage as they lift her into the air and elegantly pass her between them. The narrative loosely offers each as a possible partner, but there's never a sense of competition, as the tone remains light and playful, and ends on a sweet note.

Arielle Smith's Five Dances is an evocative series of performances that are marked with shifting colours and light, as six dancers appear in various groupings, sometimes in couples or alone. The first piece is classical, and the movement becomes increasingly modern through each dance, creating visceral shapes as the performers run, leap and, in the articulate Arthur Wille's case, slide. The music also becomes increasingly rhythmic, adding kinetic energy to the physicality. There are also some terrific sight gags and group formations, culminating in a fabulous final leap. Concerto (Second Movement) is another piece by MacMillan, as Joseph Taylor and Isadora Bless tentatively approach, then he supports her, lifts and places her in a variety of beautiful positions. It's lyrical and intriguing.

Finally, Eve is choreographed by the company's artistic director Christopher Marney. It begins with a clever use of projection before leading into a new take on Eve's interaction with the serpent. Cira Robinson is spinning alone on stage when the shadowy serpent (Álvaro Madrigal Arenilla) begins bargaining with her. Tender and sensual, their full-bodied dance reveals a fascinatingly complex connection as the story develops vividly. This includes the sudden appearance of an apple, as well as a group of dancers in skin-toned costumes who envelop her. And an inventive use of shadows create moments of dramatic intensity.

While everything here is performed with stunning levels of skill, there's an almost stubbornly dated feeling to the entire programme, partly because of the simplicity of the stage design and also because each number is so resolutely binary, with men leading each dance as they show off their women. But there are breathtaking elements scattered throughout, and hints that the tables are turning. 

For details: LONDON CITY BALLET >

photos by ASH • 12.Sep.24

Stage: A dazzling double

Message in a Bottle
director-choreographer Kate Prince
music and lyrics Sting
with Tommy Franzen, Lukas McFarlane, Michael Naylor, Emma Houston, Robia Milliner Brown, Lizzie Gough, Nafisah Baba, Samuel Baxter, Lindon Barr, Jaih Betote, Anne Edwards, Onyemachi Ejimofor, Nestor Garcia Gonzalez, Anna Holmstrom, Ajani Johnson-Goffe, Daniella May, Kino McHugh, Annakanako Mohri, Aaron Nutttall, Daniel Phung, Hannah Sandilands,  Delano Spenrath, Gavin Vincent
The Peacock, London • 6.Feb-21.Mar.20

Ambitiously combining the music of Sting and The Police with issues surrounding refugee migration, this debut production is a definite crowd-pleaser, packed with great songs and a company of seriously talented dancers expressing themselves with eye-popping choreography that captures both the inner spirit and physical expressivity of the characters and situations. It's a powerful show, provocative and deeply moving, raw and beautiful.

The story centres on three teens who are living happy, love-filled lives when their community is obliterated by military conflict. The survivors band together to escape, but are separated during their odyssey, taking distinct journeys that involve horrific treatment by officials, attempts to assimilate into new cultures, finding new love and surviving some darkly gruelling situations, such as human trafficking as a drug-addicted sex slave. Through all of this, the three central figures express their emotions in vivid ways that take the audience on a journey with them.

Sting's music bristles with political commentary, especially the songs from his 1987 Nothing Like the Sun album, which use their yearning, issue-tinged lyrics and world music beats to draw out underlying ideas and feelings. Other numbers feel more than a little on-the-nose, even contrived. And attempts to match lyrics to story or choreography elements are uneven. But the songs are gorgeously re-recorded, and Kate Prince's stylistically eclectic and physically demanding choreography brings out intense feelings, often seeming to suspend the laws of gravity as performers hang in the air, smoothly mixing street moves with classical ballet and modern dance. It's a visually stunning show, demanding a lot of the dancers, and they deliver with style, energy and a strong emotional kick.

There are several high points in the show, most notably Tommy Franzen and Samuel Baxter's duet to Shape of My Heart, which discovers an unexpected romance with a gorgeous blend of power and tenderness. Other moments are exhilarating or wrenching, carefully constructed to take the viewed on a swirling journey through the themes, staged with a wonderful sense of lyricism. Human migration is a vitally important issue, explored with beauty and a clear sense of righteous anger. And the grim ending finds a triumphant note that raises spirits even if it feels oddly false. Still, it leaves us thinking, and more importantly feeling what life feels like for displaced people.

19.Feb.20

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Alina at Sadler’s Wells
curator Alina Cojocaru
with Alina Cojocaru, Francesco Gabriele Frola, Dominic Harrison, Johan Kobborg, Juliano Nunes, Marcelino Sambé, Takahiro Tamagawa
choreography Frederick Ashton, Kim Brandstrup, Johan Kobborg, Juliano Nunes, Tim Rushton,
music Antonio Bazzini, Francois Couperin, Georg Frederic Handel, Luke Howard, Franz Liszt, Arvo Part, Henryk Wieniawski
Sadler's Wells, London • 20-23.Feb.20

This enjoyable collection of classical and contemporary works is curated and performed by Alina Cojocaru, the Romanian lead principal dancer with the English National Ballet. It's a lively mix of music, dance and film layered with moments that are dazzlingly athletic, moving and even funny. To kick off, the evening opens with a dance between Charlie Siem's violin and Margarita Balanas' cello as they perform Handel's intricate, frisky Passacaglia.

This is followed by the more sombre Reminiscence, which Cojocaru performs with her partner Johan Kobborg in an evocative display of support, echoing, reflection and elevation. Cojocaru is simply magical on-stage, with her floating limbs moving with seemingly supernatural fluidity, always with the hint of a joyful smile ready to erupt. Journey is a three-part piece in which she is joined by Juliano Nunes and Dominic Harrison for a physically demanding, emotionally raw exploration of interaction that shifts and expands as it progresses, often taking the breath away with the use of balance and motion, choreographed beautifully to Luke Howard's music.

Les Lutins is the show-stopper, opening with the charismatic Marcelino Sambé interacting playfully with Siem and his violin before being joined by Takahiro Tamagawa for some cheeky one-upmanship, which shifts into witty rivalry when Cojocaru joins them. Kobborg's choreography is lightly gorgeous, as these three spiral around each other, echoing and expanding on each others' movements.

There are also lovely two short films by Kim Brandstrup, which offer even more intimate touches. Faces is an excerpt from a 2018 film, offering a chance to see Cojocaru close-up as she thinks through her movements. Kiev is a newly commissioned piece that follows Cojocaru back to the faded halls of the Kiev State Ballet School for the first time in 25 years, where she has a powerfully moving encounter with her former teachers. It's haunting and full of intensely internalised meaning.

And finally, there's the classically staged Marguerite and Armand, complete with Cecil Beaton's glorious costumes. Frederick Ashton's iconic choreography to Liszt's swirling piano score is given a fresh, energetic kick in this colourful, vibrant performance, as courtesan Marguerite (Cojocaru) dreams of her young lover Armand (Francesco Gabriele Frola), who stands out among her many suitors. But as their romance blossoms, Marguerite is afraid to tell Armand that she is dying. No, it doesn't end happily, but it's achingly beautiful.

20.Feb.20