Ballet Central Review 4*
Ballet Central brought flair and originality to Next Generation Festival with a bill of gems old and new
Ballet Central is the touring company of the London-based Central School of Ballet. Unlike the junior companies we’ve seen in this year’s Next Generation Festival at the Linbury, which presented young graduates, Ballet Central is made up of students of the school’s final year.
However, such was the polish and assurance of their performances you’d be forgiven for mistaking them for fully-fledged graduates.
Three of the pieces in the programme were especially commissioned for the company; the fourth was a curiosity: an early piece by Frederick Ashton, seen for the first time in its entirety in over 90 years, after meticulous reconstruction by British ballet veteran Ursula Hageli.
Entitled Foyer de Danse it was created in 1932 as a miniature that already exhibits much of what was to become the unmistakable Ashton style: expressive arms, soft back, the use of the shoulders in epaulement and feathery footwork.
Set in a ballet studio, it animates Edgar Degas’s famous paintings of Paris Opera Ballet dancers. Six coryphées are put through their paces by the maître de ballet. L’Étoile is late arriving, pursued by a lascivious patron.
It could be argued you’re not a complete English dancer until you’ve mastered the Ashton style; and these young students are not quite there yet, but in the matinee Hannah Noh as L’Étoile came very close with a spirited performance
Ballet Central, Hannah Noh as L’Étoile in Ashton’s Foyer de Danse. Photo: Lauren Hewett
The programme started with Feast, a 10-minute piece by The Royal Ballet principal character artist and choreographer Kristen McNally.
Danced to light, airy music by Philip Feeney played live by a trio of musicians, it used the language of classical ballet (the women were on pointe) coloured by gestures from ancient Egyptian imagery: arms bent at an angle with flexed palms facing up, for example.
Presenting itself as a conversation, it juggled an ensemble, a trio and a duet in lively, syncopated, sometimes quirky movement, the women bourreeing softly, the men allowed to show their prowess.
Rise, by Dickson Mbi, came next.
Ballet Central in Dickson Mbi’s Rise. Photo: Johan Persson
In contrast to the lightness of the previous piece, red-lit Rise established a darker locus. It started with the ensemble lying on the ground at the feet of a woman standing up-stage. Mbi’s own propulsive music urged them forward at a crawl.
Slowly the black-clad dancers in unisex skirts rose and the piece evolved into a tribal ritual. Feet in socks stomped, hands slapped thighs rhythmically, legs bent, torsos leaning forward. At times the fierce beat and thumping rhythm was reminiscent of a Maori haka.
The final piece, Keeping Up With the Apocalypse, came from the inexhaustible creativity of the duo Thick & Tight and was characteristically zany, inventive, camp, amusing and very now.
Ballet Central in Thick & Tight’s Keeping Up with the Apocalypse. Photography by ASH
It imagined a desolate post-apocalyptic world where, a plummy male voice over explained, nothing survived except for… The Kardashians, famous for being famous, living on money and still pursuing their undying quest for attention.
The dancers in oily black unitards entered this dark, grotesque world with gusto, dancing to stretches from John Adams’s minimalist opera Nixon in China interspersed with vacuous, naff quotes from the real Kardashians.
It was truly glorious, and the moment it ended I wanted to watch it all over again.
Kudos, then, to Kate Coyne and Ben Warbis, the two remarkable former dancers now in charge of Ballet Central, for an intelligent programme that showed off their dancers’ ability and commitment and was thoroughly entertaining.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Ballet Central in Ashton’s Foyer de Danse. Photo: Lauren Hewett)
Ballet Central performed at the Next Generation Festival on 17 June 2025 at 2 pm and 7.15 pm
Ballet Central’s UK tour continues until 17 July. Info and tickets here
Next Generation Festival continues at the RBO Linbury Theatre until 29 June 2025. Full info and tickets here