It’s the moments when you see a dancer’s eyes light up that give a thrill. When a smile breaks out as they nail a tricky rhythm, or lean into a juicy move, relishing the unfamiliar, taking a risk. Under new management since the arrival of artistic director (and ex-Royal Ballet principal) Federico Bonelli in May, Northern Ballet’s usual territory is accessible story ballets based on popular titles such as The Great Gatsby, Casanova and 1984. But this triple bill shows they’re not on autopilot, commissioning three choreographers who bring with them diverse influences.
Mthuthuzeli November draws on memories from his South African childhood; Dickson Mbi brings elements of hip-hop; Stina Quagebeur connects with qualities from everyday life, and you can see the dancers finding their way with this new material. Regardless of the success of every work, this is what artists, and ballet companies, need: to dip a toe (in pointe shoes or otherwise) into a different way of moving, and therefore thinking. That doesn’t have to mean a dramatic shift from the dance vocabulary they’re used to. What’s refreshing about Quagebeur’s piece, Nostalgia, is its ordinariness. It’s one of the more perceptive depictions of a realistic relationship I’ve seen on a ballet stage. We see snatches of a couple in an unspectacular, non-fantasy romance. First it’s with gentle tension between two bodies. Then it’s more hostile, more hurt. Now they seem to be asking: “Who even are you?” Or maybe realising: “I think I need you.” However you look at it, it’s complicated. The pair (Minju Kang and Jonathan Hanks) watch as an identical couple appear, dancing with blithe and playful ease. Was that us? They’re enchanted by their own memories, caught up in it all until somehow they have swapped partners and each is dancing with their own fantasy.
Wailers is a piece by Ballet Black’s November that does edge the dancers out of their comfort zone. November has imaginative ways of fusing ballet with a more grounded, looser physicality. This piece portrays faith and struggle and community, especially among women, with Aerys Merrill as a grandmother figure of wisdom and steadfastness at the centre. Sarah Chun, playing a mother, really gets inside the flow and pull and swaying rhythm of the choreography, especially in an uplifting finale where the stage glows with hopefulness and communality.
Quagebeur and November are used to working within ballet companies, as dancers and choreographers, but Mbi comes from a hip-hop and contemporary dance background. His piece, Ma Vie, started out as a film in response to Kenneth Tindall’s ballet Casanova, and has some cinematic ambition and style. Tindall tracked the famous seducer’s colourful escapades in sensual movement; Mbi is more interested in showing us Casanova’s demons. The one-time prisoner seems most trapped by his own impulses. The ensemble dancers are dressed in black, with hoods, only their hands and wrists not covered by clothing, and they become invisible forces manipulating him. It’s a device you see in street dance routines, so it’s interesting to see it transferred to ballet, and to see the dancers absorb different accents and impetus into their bodies from Mbi’s way of moving. The major demon, however, perhaps Casanova’s shadow self, is performed by a guest, the brilliant hip-hop dancer Jonadette Carpio, who does rather steal the show.
Made in Leeds is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 3 November.
