AFTER selling out its 2009 performances at the Theatre Royal, Birmingham Royal Ballet returns to York today and tomorrow as part of its 20th anniversary itinerary.
Three contrasting ballets, one of them a new work, make up the programme for performances tonight at 7.30pm and tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm.
Set in the garden of an Italian Renaissance villa, Allegri Diversi is a short, elegant piece by company director David Bintley, first choreographed for Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet (now Birmingham Royal Ballet) in 1987 to a light and playful score by Rossini.
Grosse Fuge, choreographed by Hans van Manen to Beethoven’s music, opens with four men and four women dancing in separate groups, apparently uninterested in each other. Gradually the music becomes more complex, and so does the delicate interplay, as it becomes clear the dancers are in fact performing for each other. Finally they become four couples, dancing together in celebration.
The stylish new piece, The Centre And its Opposite by Australian Dance Theatre artistic director Garry Stewart, is set to a rhythmically powerful electronic soundscape by Huey Benjamin as the dancers compete directly for the audience’s attention in an intense explosion of rapid-fire classical ballet fused with hard-edged contemporary dance.
Prompt booking is advised on 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
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