I’ve wasted too many hours trying to persuade people that ballet can be fun. Glamorous, romantic, spectacular, sure. But fun? That’s a tough sell. So all hail the life-enhancing fizz of Playlist, which caps William Forsythe’s triple bill at English National Ballet. Now nudging 70, the American choreographer made his name in the 1980s as a radical brainiac, wrenching ballet technique in unexpected directions. More recently, he’s matched the cerebral with the sassy, lining up his pop mixes and having a ball. Us too.
There’s also an exhilaration in experiment, which motivates the show’s first half. Forsythe created Rearray as a duet in 2011, but revisits it as a trio for London. On a stark stage and under scrupulously subdued lighting, it looks forensic: three dancers see where a move will take them, how they can fit along and around each other.
