Giannandrea Poesio

Cinderella Royal Opera House, in rep until 5 June I know that old fairy tales are not popular or fashionable any more. But last Saturday, at the opening of the Royal Ballet’s new run of Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella, I was shocked to overhear two nicely behaved children ask their grandparents why the good fairy had asked Cinders to fetch a pumpkin and why there were dancers dressed as white mice pulling her coach. It’s true that, in Ashton’s superb choreographic adaptation of the old story, the transformation scene is not as graphic as it is in Walt Disney’s animated film. Yet the youngsters’ questions were symptomatic of the cultural, psychological and political trends that inform children’s upbringing today.

Royal Ballet Triple Bill Royal Opera House, in rep until 15 April The Royal Ballet’s new triple bill is a rare example of artistically enlightened programming. It is devoted to Kenneth MacMillan’s creative genius, and highlights his most distinctive and seminal choreographic aesthetic through a masterly game of contrasts. Concerto, created in 1966, provides a unique insight into how MacMillan dealt with the notion of plotless or ‘abstract’ ballet set to non-dance-specific music. Shostakovich’s sometimes infectious, sometimes emotionally intense score is translated into what could be referred to as softly toned, spirited choreography.

Royal Ballet Triple Bill Royal Opera House The nurturing of home-grown choreographic talent has always played a central role in the history of the Royal Ballet. Undaunted by the possible ups and downs of the experimental approach, Ninette de Valois, the company’s founder, set up a unique platform for budding dance-makers. True, not everything was a success and not everything stood the test of time; but, had it not been for her risk-taking, modern-dance history would have suffered a great deal. Against the pressures and the fashionable trends of today’s ‘artistic globalisation’, which prescribes the import/export of a universally adaptable prêt à porter kind of choreography, the company has long remained faithful to the principles of its creator.

Carlos Acosta Sadler’s Wells Theatre Jerome Robbins, the undisputed, though often unsung, father of modern American ballet, was one of the few dance-makers who could successfully choreograph to Bach’s music. Undaunted by the morass of cultural, historical and artistic biases that still surrounds the compositions of the baroque master, Robbins approached Bach with an intriguing mix of respect, in-depth musical understanding and modern-day wit. In his ‘Bach’ creations, the dance idiom is never a mere translation/adaptation of the music, but an ideal complement to the same, which highlights the scores’ linear complexities by responding to the music’s incessant inventiveness with a seamless outpouring of ideas.

Firsts Linbury Studio Theatre Gnosis Sadler’s Wells Theatre Funky is not normally a word used to describe the cultural activities at the Royal Opera House. But that adjective encapsulates the essence of Firsts, a showcase of different performing talents, now in its seventh year. Funkiness is indeed what greeted spectators last week at the opening of the 2009 edition, once they had descended into the cheerful vaults of the Linbury Studio Theatre. Multitalented Matt Hennem interacted with the incoming public, by dancing among them with his gravity-defying, mesmerising crystal ball. His elegant, well-choreographed evolutions and improvisations set the tone for the rest of the evening, thus becoming the prelude to equally captivating displays of different skills and bravura.

Quantum Leaps Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler’s Wells Despite the clever in-joke/reference, Quantum Leaps is not exactly a crowd-pulling title for a ballet evening. Last week, outside Sadler’s Wells, a couple of passers-by had trouble imagining how someone could turn a television hit into a ballet. And, on the opening night, a lady was heard querying whether the programme had something to do with James Bond. Yet such an ambiguous title — Latin and scientific terms are seldom popular — fits the bill perfectly, as it encapsulates the essence of the energetic, thought-provoking modern ballet that is on offer. Stanton Welch created Powder in 1998 to Mozart’s haunting Clarinet Concerto in A major.

Triple Bill The Royal Ballet Although George Balanchine’s 1957 ballet Agon is not based on a Greek myth, it is traditionally regarded as the third instalment of the ‘classical antiquity’ series, following Apollo (1928) and Orpheus (1948). Inspired by the competitive displays of physical bravura that were so popular in ancient Sparta, Agon marked a significant stage in the development of Balanchine’s choreographic aesthetic. It is in Agon, in fact, that the dance-maker’s ‘stripped-to-the-essential’ formula found its most vivid first expression.

Mark Morris Dance Group Sadler’s Wells Michael Clark Company The Barbican Sleeping Beauty Royal Opera House Last week, the 2009 Dance Umbrella season rolled merrily towards its end with performances by two former ‘bad boys’ of the choreographic world. Luckily, neither event looked anything like those boyband comebacks the music industry thrives on these days. After all, Mark Morris and Michael Clark never cease to amaze and enthral audiences, thus remaining, Peter Pan-like, ‘bad boys’ for much longer than actual boyhood. Interestingly, they both presented recent works that allowed seasoned dancegoers to take the pulse of their current artistic creativity.

In the Spirit of Diaghilev Sadler’s Wells Inbal Pinto & Avshalom Pollak Dance Company: Hydra Queen Elizabeth Hall In a dance world asphyxiated by a lack of inventiveness, it is refreshing to be confronted by creations that can still provoke, shock and amuse. This is the case with Javier De Frutos’s Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, premièred last week at Sadler’s Wells amid audible and visible signs of disapproval and approval. Regarded by some as a gratuitously offensive publicity-seeking stunt, the work is more than a mere succès de scandale.

Dance Umbrella Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan, Barbican Theatre Cabane P3, University of Westminster Cloud Gate Theatre of Taiwan is not new to the UK dance scene. Yet, as stressed in an inflated, self- celebratory programme note, Wind Shadow marks a neat move away from the performance formulae seen in their previous productions. Created in 2006 by Lin Hwai-Min in collaboration with the visual artist Cai Guo-Qiang — who played a significant role in the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics — the work strives to be an example of ‘moving installation art’. As such, it comes across as a series of moving pictures that both surprise and shock the viewer with moments of incomparable lyricism and powerfully unsettling imagery.

Scottish Ballet: 40th Anniversary Season Sadler’s Wells Theatre Scottish Ballet has been frequently praised for its stylistically impeccable and theatrically superb renditions of George Balanchine’s works. It is thus more than fitting that the company’s 40th-anniversary programme kicks off with Rubies, the sparkling central section of Jewels, his acclaimed 1967 triptych. Rubies, which is often performed on its own, highlights and encompasses the best of the Balanchinian choreographic aesthetic. Dazzling, jazzy ideas, representing the American culture that the Russian-born dance-maker wanted to embrace, develop rapidly from traces of the old classical tradition which encapsulate Balanchine’s reverence for his own past and for that balletic idiom he never refuted.

Ashes, Les Ballets C de la B Queen Elizabeth Hall The creation of postmodern dance works set to new and somewhat provocative arrangements of Baroque music seems to have become a signature feature of Les Ballets C de la B. In Ashes, dance-maker Koen Augustijnen draws upon a set of Handel’s Italian arias and duets to explore issues of mortality, loss, abandonment and lack of achievement. Both the formula and its ingredients are not that different from those of Pitié!, Alain Platel’s powerful reading of Bach’s St Matthew Passion, which I reviewed so enthusiastically a few months back. Apart from the many similarities, Ashes does not come across as theatrically powerful or being as cutting edge as Pitié!

Ballets Russes English National Ballet, Sadler’s Wells I think Diaghilev would have been thrilled to attend the opening night of English National Ballet’s centenary celebrations of his Ballets Russes. Not unlike his famously orchestrated 1909 dress rehearsal at the Châtelet Theatre in Paris, ENB’s performance was attended by a glamorous array of stars, celebrities and former glories, complete with paparazzi at the entrance. Luckily, the buzz was not just on one side of the curtain, as the first of the two Ballets Russes celebration programmes was also glamorous and generally well performed.

Jewels Royal Opera House Created in 1967 for a stellar cast of dance artists, Jewels is one of the most written about of Balanchine’s ballets. Intrigued by its uncommon structure, namely three choreographically diverse, plotless sections set to different music, dance writers have long debated the work’s possible meanings.

H3: Bruno Beltrão and Grupo de Rua Sadler’s Wells Theatre Regardless of the unbearable media hype surrounding the few highs and many lows of Britain’s Got Talent, I am pleased that Diversity, an exciting street dance group, won the competition. The award somehow gives public recognition to an art form that has long struggled to establish itself outside the boundaries of an urban phenomenon by entering, though not always successfully, the theatre arts arena. Within the past ten years there have been many examples of ‘theatricalised’ street dance, and a number of good performances too.

Giselle; Triple Bill The Royal Ballet In my view, the debuts of Marianela Nuñez and Lauren Cuthbertson in Giselle have been the highlights of London’s current ballet season. I wish I had the writing abilities of Théophile Gautier, the man who first turned dance criticism into a respectable profession, to be able to convey the excitement I found at each performance. Alas, only a great romantic writer like Gautier could come up with one-word definitions that encapsulate the distinctive qualities of great artists — in his words, Marie Taglioni’s ethereal dancing was ‘Christian’, while Fanny Elssler’s more sensuous and earth-bound style was ‘pagan’.

Swan Lake American Ballet Theatre, London Coliseum A complex, somewhat troubled history has turned Swan Lake into the most manipulated ballet ever. The lack of strict historical constraints has frequently led ballet directors, repetiteurs and choreographers to feel more or less free to intervene in the text, often twisting its narrative and altering the traditional, though not original, choreography. Take, for instance, Kevin McKenzie’s production for American Ballet Theatre, which strives to make the most of the ballet’s performance tradition while at the same time peppering the work with not so stylistically and dramaturgically appropriate additions.

Isadora/Dances at a Gathering Royal Opera House Dance scholars have long banged on about Isadora Duncan’s revolutionary artistry and ground-breaking — for her time, that is — thinking, thus overlooking some less overt, yet highly significant aspects of her unique, if larger than life persona. Beyond the depths of her feminist ideas, art philosophy and fervent socialism, lurked a cunningly clever, no-nonsense American woman, who knew how to play the system and get the most out of it.