On Thursday 15th February, four completely different new works premiered on the Royal Opera House main stage, as part of the Royal Ballet’s Festival of New Choreography. It was an evening of exciting variety, showcasing styles that ranged from ‘neo-classical’ to ‘contemporary’, and from unemotional abstraction to warm theatricality, in a programme that began with Gemma Bond’s Boundless to full orchestral accompaniment, and closed with Jessica Lang’s Twinkle to solo piano. Bond and Lang made full, but contrasting, use of the Royal Ballet’s traditional strengths as a leading ‘classical’ ballet company, acting as bookends to a programme in which the second and third pieces, by Joshua Junker and Mthuthuzeli November respectively, required the dancers to work in very different styles.

Bond’s use of Joey Roukens’ score In Unison for orchestra with two pianos, was an exceptionally bold choice for the evening’s opening work, Boundless. In the introductory film (one of which preceded each work), Bond described how her ideas sprang partly from watching children in a playground and observing their freedom and lack of inhibition. Beautifully and simply costumed by Charlotte Macmillan (short tutus like flower petals for the women and unitards for the men), the rectangular blocks of blue light cast onto the stage by designer Zeynep Kepekli framed and added shape to the dance. This was an ambitious and serious attempt to push ballet’s vocabulary beyond its normal range with unusual lifts and variations on familiar steps, in patterns that demanded geometrical accuracy. Against the overpowering musical score, seen from the amphitheatre, the dance had a quality of remote coolness.

Junker’s Never Known, to recorded music by Nils Frahm on a darkened stage, was an hypnotic dance in which the closely-packed dancers, illuminated in pale watery colours, seemed to ripple in intersecting patterns of shared movement that drew and fascinated the eye; it was like watching a machine, until a musical transition marked a shift to more lyrical movement passages in which dancers emerged to dance in smaller groups yet remained part of a collective whole.

In contrast to this mood of detachment, November’s For What It’s Worth appeared to be about real people, as he drew on his African heritage, pushing his cast beyond their comfort zones, embracing intense rhythms and an earthier way of moving. The orange band of light projected onto the stage suggested a road along which the dancers seemed to journey in a series of encounters. The visually rich performance, with women’s heads encircled by hats like a halos, and costumes of glorious green, pink and orange silk, made use of pointe, but might equally suit dance companies that are not predominantly ballet-oriented.

After three works presented in varying degrees of darkness, Twinkle, the final work of the evening felt like coming out into the light. Lang’s warm and playful work showed how conventional ballet technique can convey wit, humour and sheer joy. The musical accompaniment, played by Kate Shipway seated on a high platform at the back of the stage, was Brahms’ Lullaby and Mozart’s twelve variations on the tune commonly known in the UK as ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’. It was sometimes almost too pretty: with pastel colours, sequins glinting on the dancers’ dresses, and a magical silvery globe suspended above the upstage left corner of the stage, it was like stepping into an illustrated fairy tale or nursery rhyme book. Lang’s subtle skill at creating and dissolving groups, with snatches of steps referencing other ballets, showed confidence and ease. She was the only one of the four choreographers to say that her creative starting point had been the dancers themselves, and it was an absolute delight to watch a dance that seemed to be simply about dancing.

Maggie Watson

21st February 2024