Dutch National Ballet's current season at Sadler's Wells marks not only its first London appearance in 10 years but also its first visit to England under Wayne Eagling since he left the Royal Ballet to became its director. With admirable modesty, Eagling has resisted using DNB's opening programme to showcase his own contributions to the company and instead has presented a tribute to Hans van Manen, its resident choreographer for many years. Yet that modesty starts to look oddly like meanness when we realise that of the four van Manen ballets on show, three are duets and the fourth, although featuring six dancers, is little more than a series of pas de deux.
Once we get over the meagre scale of the programme, it does make some sense. The theme that haunts van Manen is the polar attraction and repulsion of the sexes, and the duet is the perfect form in which to study this. Nowhere is it more fascinating than in Live (1979), a piece for two dancers and a video camera, which even now makes for disturbing and mesmerising viewing.
Live opens with the cameraman on stage, circling the superb Sabine Chaland as she dances. Every move she makes is projected on to a huge screen; the camera's eye and the public's gaze collude in an intimate, semi-voyeuristic regard as we study each bead of sweat, each muscular effort. A male dancer crosses the stage and Chaland tries to follow him out of the auditorium. But this is a piece with no respect for privacy. The camera pursues Chaland into the foyer and watches as she and the man dance there, seeming to resume some ongoing passionate dispute. Finally Chaland breaks free and walks out of the theatre. The camera strains to follow her until she disappears into the rainy streets of Islington.
Van Manen mostly does arguments very well. Although Three Pieces for HET (1997) turns out to be a disappointing muddle of emotional and dance cliches, Twilight (1972) is witty, rancorous and erotic. Cage's delicious score for prepared piano sounds like the track for a samurai movie as the woman, in foot-wrenchingly high-heeled shoes, teases her man with alternate shows of aggression and display. It's performed with wickedly spiked nuance.
The conflicts in Adagio Hammerklavier are less explicit but that's because the choreography develops into a rivetingly intelligent parsing of the elements of classical adagio. In starkly clipped phrases the arching curves of the dancers' backs and legs, the precise accommodations of their bodies, acquire an exaggerated beauty - a perfect showcase for the fabulously grown-up talents of DNB's dancers.
Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
