Back in 1986 the jury was still out over Michael Clark's status as a dance maker. Renowned as he might be for the flamboyant shock tactics of his shows and for the miraculous beauty of his own dancing, no one knew if Clark's work could ever stand on choreographic merit alone. Yet the exhilarating formal geometries of Swamp changed the picture - not only acting as a radiant rebuttal to the sceptics of 18 years ago, but in its long overdue revival now looking like a classic.
It's a piece in which Clark discovered a perfect fusion between the elegant clarity of his ballet training and the deviant glamour he relished in post-punk London. From the moment Swamp's eight dancers track the stage, their slow march, fuelled by the sullen beat of Bruce Gilbert's music, the work is lifted on a rush of adrenaline. Clark's control, however, as he separates out the dance into four deftly calibrated duets, is impeccable. There isn't a moment of slack and while you are stilled by the rapture of certain moments you are also dragged along by the hair-raising build up of tension as the work paces to its climax.
Swamp is arguably the best thing Clark has ever created, and you want to see it again - immediately. However, the three works that share Rambert's current programme are all of exceptional quality.
Rafael Bonachela, after his slightly disappointing entry for The Place Prize, returns to form in his newly worked duet for dancer and violinist, Irony of Fate. On one level this is simply an intent, visceral act of listening in which the stutters and swoops of Bonachela's choreography react to the physical bite and caress of the music's rhythms. But it also develops into a mesmerising tussle of wills as the music forces dancer Amy Hollingsworth to increasing extremes, splaying her limbs, suspending her in balances until it finally sucks all the energy out of her.
If this duet shows Bona chela working at his highest level so do the two works completing the programme - Javier De Frutos' deliciously sophisticated and slutty setting of Cole Porter, Elsa Canasta, and Kim Brandstrup's Songs of a Wayfarer, a study of sexual obsession that charts a thrilling course through the rich dynamics of Mahler's song cycle. It is a superb evening of dance - and one more proof of the taste and nerve with which Rambert is currently raising its game.
· Until November 6. Box office: 0870 737 7737.
