Inspired by Diaghilev Royal Ballet, Linbury Studio, London WC2
What was Diaghilev's secret? No creator himself, he nurtured an extraordinary flowering of talent in his Ballets Russes company from 1909 to 1929. To mark the 75th anniversary of his death, the Royal Ballet asked five young choreographers to produce works linked to his successes.
The results did not reveal the recipe for great collaborations between choreographers, composers and designers. Neither, I suspect, will the current Channel 4 series (and book), A Rough Guide to Choreography. If there were a formula, we would get more hits than misses.
Alastair Marriott succeeded with Being and Having Been, an interesting score by Igor Markevitch, a Diaghilev protege; a hint of a story - Icarus's doomed flight - and uncluttered designs by Adam Wiltshire. Marriott wittily combined homage to the Ballets Russes with his own ideas, keeping his choreography clear and angular.
Everyone else went in for complicated interweavings, some deft (Matjash Mrozewski), some tortuous (Cathy Marston). Robert Garland turned Stravinsky's Rite of Spring into a sexy sacrifice; Vanessa Fenton killed off two crass puppet victims. Plenty of imagination, quite a lot of craft, but no evidence of genius.
