R:Evolution, English National Ballet Review 4*
R:Evolution was English National Ballet’s season opening mixed programme, showcasing four very different, yet equally visionary, dance makers
This article was first published on London Unattached
English National Ballet (ENB) opened its 2025/26 season with R:Evolution, a cleverly assembled mixed bill that aims to illustrate the evolution of the art form through four stages that also, in a way, amount to a revolution. Hence the mash-up of the title.
The first two pieces are contemporaneous: George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations and Martha Graham’s Errand into the Maze both date from 1947, but there the similarities end.
Theme and Variations, set to Tchaikovsky’s “Orchestral Suite No. 3”, is a throwback to the grandeur of imperial Russian ballet; yet, at the same time, it represents a significant step in the genesis of what was to become American ballet, in which Balanchine was instrumental.
A piece for 13 couples in glittering tutus – pristine white for the lead couple, pale gold for the four solo couples and salmon for the corps (designs by Roberta Guidi di Bagno, who’s also responsible for the rather tatty chandeliers) – it relies on pure classical lines, perfect co-ordination and easy fluency in execution to belie the fiendish demands of its choreography.
On the evening I went (the unusual clash of opening nights between English National Ballet and The Royal Ballet required critics to do a bit of juggling), the lead couple was Sangeun Lee and Gareth Haw. Both very tall and elegant, both very musical and preternaturally attuned to each other, here she was a slightly aloof queen, he her adoring cavalier. Something transcendent always happens when they dance together, and it happened again then. I found them mesmerising.
The soloists and corps of English National Ballet acquitted themselves very well, and it was an entirely creditable, at times rousing, performance, if lacking that hard-to-define extra dimension that only American dancers know how to bring to Balanchine.
Martha Graham’s Errand into the Maze is a compelling piece of expressionist dancing. Graham pioneered contemporary dance, characterised by barefoot, earthbound movements built around the body’s core, drawing inspiration from ancient mythology for its timeless themes. Here she was inspired by Theseus’ descent into the labyrinth to slay the Minotaur, but her lead figure is The Woman facing and defeating The Creature of Fear.
It is, therefore, an inward journey, where The Woman, forcefully danced by Emily Suzuki, plunges deeper and deeper into the unknown in a journey with clear sexual overtones, to confront her fears, convincingly embodied by Rentaro Nakaaki, who dances throughout with a wooden staff across his shoulders.
Gian Carlo Menotti’s forceful, ominous musical score adds to the darkness that pervades the piece until The Woman’s final moment of triumph.
It’s not the jolliest, but it’s possibly the most impactful piece of the programme.
If you want jolly, William Forsythe is more than happy to oblige. Herman Scherman (Quintet) is a bright piece in both choreography and design, the five dancers’ fiery orange leotards bearing Forsythe’s signature.
Tom Willems’s clanging musical score, all interruptions and metallic dissonances, elicits Forsythe’s characteristically playful deconstruction of the classical ballet vocabulary. One impeccable développé dissolves into a sassy walk, all jutting elbows and swinging hips. Playful it may be, but it demands not only virtuoso technique, but also a very specific ease of movement.
ENB dancers have become good exponents of the Forsythe style, with a few of his works among the most successful in the company’s repertoire. All five dancers in Herman Schmerman – Alice Bellini, Carolyne Galvao, Swanice Luong, Aitor Arrieta and Rhys Antoni Yeomans – excelled, but I would like to make special mention of Rhys Antoni Yeomans, who’s become an extraordinarily engaging dancer.
British choreographer David Dawson’s 2023 Four Last Songs is contemporary in look, yet its tone harks back to the yearning for transcendence of the high Romantic period.
A piece for 12 dancers set to Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, beautifully sung live by soprano Madeleine Pierard, it brings wave after fluid wave of bodies in Yumiko Takeshima’s flesh coloured leotards. There’s urgency in their runs with arms stretched forward, heads loooking upwards to heaven; the women are often raised in lifts that seem to want to transcend gravity; and although the songs are sung in German, their hymns to nature and humanity’s place in it come across in the music, which was performed with great sensitivity by English National Ballet Philharmonic, under the baton of its music director Maria Seletskaja.
© Teresa Guerreiro
(Banner image credit: Emily Suzuki & Rentaro Nakaaki in Errand into the Maza. © Photography by ASH)
R:Evolution ran at Sadler’s Wells 1 to 11 October 2015