Leo dixon

The choreographic partnership of Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot has long been celebrated in mainland Europe: a new double bill presented by the Royal Ballet is the first time their work has been showcased for British audiences. The first-night reception to Covent Garden was rapturous, but I wonder how long the excitement will last. What an astounding masterpiece this ballet is. I adore it, who couldn’t? Leon and Lightfoot specialise in movement characterised by a nervous staccato, suggestive both of psychic anxiety and robotic precision: the dancers look demented or brain-dead, animatronically controlled. Black is the dominant colour (Leon and Lightfoot are often their own designers) and the lighting does more to shade than illuminate. It is all very chic indeed.

Any evening devoted to the multifaceted genius of George Balanchine is something to be grateful for, manna in the wilderness indeed, but the Royal Ballet’s current offering left me hungry for more. Three works were on the programme, all created in the early stage of the great man’s career, two of them widely familiar, none of them reflective of anything he created post-war for New York City Ballet. Are his executors reluctant to licence productions of later masterpieces such as Agon or Stravinsky Violin Concerto, or is the Royal Ballet fighting shy of their stylistic challenges? Gripe over, and let’s just rejoice in a feast of superb choreography at Covent Garden, performed with much excellence by dancers coached by Balanchine’s apostle Patricia Neary.

Like musical supergroups and Olympic basketball teams, ballet galas tend to prize individual gifts over group cohesion. A recent one produced by dramaturg Olga Danylyuk and Royal Ballet alumni Ivan Putrov gathers Ukrainian dancers stationed at companies around America and Europe, plus soloists from the Ukrainian National Ballet, for a showcase of homeland talent. There’s definite star power on show — the cast is rounded off with leads from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, and Putrov himself was set to perform before an injury sidelined him — but with it some contrasting and occasionally competing performance styles. These come to bear in System A/I, a new ensemble piece from Ludovic Ondiviela about androids powered by artificial intelligence.