Ballet Nights ‘Spring Into Summer’ Review 3*
Ballet Nights welcomed the new season with a mixed programme of short dance pieces entitled ‘Spring Into Summer’
The Ballet Nights format – a collection of short pieces old and new compèred by founder Jamiel Devernay-Laurence – has acquired a firm foothold in the dance calendar, both in the UK and increasingly abroad, barely four years since it launched.
Fresh from its Romanian debut in Bucharest, Ballet Nights returned to London and Cadogan Hall with is new ‘Spring into Summer’ show. As usual, the programme was eclectic, a sampler of classical staples and brand new work, big names side by side with up-and-coming artists.
The big names on stage included English National Ballet principals and dedicated Ballet Nights regulars Sangeun Lee and Gareth Haw, giving William Forsythe’s 2000 Slingerland Duet, to music by Gavin Bryars, its UK premiere.
Sangeun Lee and Gareth Haw in ‘Slingerland Duet’ at Ballet Nights 008 Cadogan Hall 5.6.25. Photo by Deborah Jaffe
An intriguing piece, occasionally quoting baroque dance gestures immediately put through a Forsythe distorting filter, it once again demonstrated the superb understanding between these two dancers and the ease with which they tackle Forsythe’s intricate pairwork.
Also a regular is Royal Ballet Principal Reece Clarke, who closed the evening with the balcony pas de deux from MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet, partnering Royal Ballet colleague Anna Rose O’ Sullivan.
It’s a big ask to pluck this pas de deux from its rightful context and present it as a stand alone piece, but Clarke and O’Sullivan brought something of the transporting rapture of first love to their performance.
Reece Clarke and Anna Rose O’Sullivan in R&J Balcony duet at Ballet Nights 008 Cadogan Hall 5.6.25. Photo by Deborah Jaffe
Former Scottish Ballet principal Constance Devernay-Laurence has recently debuted in film as the dancing body double for the lead character in Prime Video’s series Étoile. A dancer of tremendous technical power and intense stage presence, she danced Christopher Wheeldon’s assertive, occasionally jazzy, I Married Myself, in a stage adaptation of the series’ final sequence.
Constance Devernay-Laurence in ‘I Married Myself’ Ballet Nights 008 Cadogan Hall 5.6.25. Photo by Deborah Jaffe
Estonian Ballet principal Eve Mutso reprised her flowing, sweeping solo from Mahler’s Five Rückert Songs, choreographed by Peter Darrell, which she first brought to Ballet Nights last summer. Here she was accompanied by Ballet Nights resident pianist Viktor Erik Emanuel and the impressive young soprano Hannah Diennes Williams.
So far, so solid. Among the newer pieces, though, there were hits and misses. My greatest disappointment was Joaquin de Luz’s La Oración performed by the freelance Ukrainian dancer Denys Cherevychko.
Joaquin de Luz, now Artistic Director of Spanish National Ballet, was an electrifying dancer, and to see him perform with New York City Ballet remains one of the highlights of my ballet watching life. Naturally – and perhaps unwisely – I had high hopes for this piece.
Set in a bullfighter’s dressing room, it involved much agonising and fiddling with a matador’s cape. The choreography was trite, Cherevychko’s performance average, the whole thing dispiriting.
Martina Piacentino and Alfonso López González represented Ballett Staatstheater Augsburg in its UK premiere. They performed Nemesis by the increasingly in demand choreographer Ihsan Rustem, a piece reminiscent of style popularised by Nederlands Dans Theater. Its highly coordinated movement was often jerky, occasionally absurdist, and mostly quite interesting as performed by two very good dancers.
Also a hit was Richard Alston’s Dutiful Ducks, danced with virtuoso assurance by the excellent young dancer Harries Beattie to Charles Amirkhanian’s staccato nonsensical poem.
Harris Beattie in ‘Dutiful Ducks’ at Ballet Nights 008 Cadogan Hall 5.6.25 . Photo by Deborah Jaffe
I have to say, though, that for all its commendable innovation and smooth production values, the Ballet Nights format always leaves me slightly unfulfilled, as if I’d been served a meal of canapés, but no main course.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Eve Mutso in ‘Ich Bin Der Welt Abhanden Gekommen’ at Ballet Nights 008 Cadogan Hall 5.6.25. Photo by Deborah Jaffe)
Also performing in Ballet Nights ‘Spring to Summer’: Leila Wright & Dominic Stokes with String Theory, Quartet Concrète, and Ekleido with Splice.
Ballet Nights was at Cadogan Hall, London, on 5th June 2025. Next performance in Glasgow on 4th July 2025.
Find info about future Ballet Nights performances here