It\u2019s exciting when artists push boundaries, melt genres, revolutionise the possibilities of the body etc; dance needs all that. But sometimes it\u2019s also wonderful to see lovely dancing set to beautiful music. And London City Ballet, the company revived last year after an almost 30 year hiatus, delivers it.<\/p>\n
Take Liam Scarlett\u2019s Consolations and Liebestraum from 2009. It helps that it opens with Alina Cojocaru, one of the world\u2019s superlative ballerinas, who is always able to make your heart quietly leap, your breath still for a moment. The Liszt score, played live by Reina Okada, is longingly romantic but sets in train dancing with no schmaltz, unspooling threads of steps that are swift but unhurried: turn and lift, turn and lift in fluid swirl. Scarlett\u2019s later career became mired in controversy<\/a> and he took his own life in 2021; this is a reminder of the superiority of his craftsmanship.<\/p>\n A new commission, Soft Shore by Paris Opera Ballet\u2019s Florent Melac, is easy on the eye and ear too, but suffers from being too close in mood to Scarlett\u2019s piece. The second highlight of the programme is Alexei Ratmansky\u2019s Pictures at an Exhibition. The famous Mussorgsky score was inspired by Viktor Hartmann\u2019s paintings, but the backdrop here has projections of Kandinsky\u2019s colourful circles. Again for solo piano, the music is illustrative, almost comical at points with a heavy, lurching melody, but Ratmansky\u2019s response is not always the obvious \u2013 there is brightness and zing \u2013 and we are absorbed into the dance\u2019s world. Joseph Taylor (formerly of Northern Ballet) gets a fantastic angry solo against a vivid red canvas; Constance Devernay-Laurence, another former principal with a large company (Scottish Ballet) emits the assurance only experience can bring.<\/p>\n Part of London City Ballet\u2019s remit is to revive forgotten works by great choreographers. Here it\u2019s George Balanchine\u2019s Haieff Divertimento from 1947, never before seen in the UK. It has Balanchine signatures a-plenty: the practice-wear costumes; the clarity of individual steps, as if watching a ballet class; the idiosyncratic style of jutting hips and off-centre weight. Dancers train for years to absorb Balanchine\u2019s technique and this is not a Balanchine company \u2013 although Cuban dancer Alejandro Virelles does a lovely combination of lightness and authority that\u2019s very in keeping \u2013 but it\u2019s a pleasure to see the work unearthed nonetheless.<\/p>\n