Fabulous Beast's The Bull deserves a lengthy format. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Javier De Frutos admits that one of the perks of being appointed artistic director of Phoenix is that, within reason and budget, he can get to see the work he likes best. And it is interesting that the first piece he has acquired for his repertory is Jane Dudley's Harmonica Breakdown. As well as being a classic, De Frutos considers that this short solo is a choreographic gem, packing more into its three minutes than most achieve in 90. In a culture where most dances are indulgently over length, he thinks it "puts most of us to shame".
Many choreographers, however, don't have control over the running time of their works. De Frutos, who frequently uses serious scores for his own dances, knows that one obvious constraint is the composer's own decisions about length. Only this week, we saw Christopher Hampson struggling to spin his Sinfonietta Giocosa over the full 35-minute span of Martinu's score. The composer himself could have done with an editor, but Hampson loyally stuck with a piece that felt 10 minutes too long for its material.
An even more grinding constraint is the demand of, usually European, venues and producers for the 90 minute dance concept that can stretch to a full evening - and single handedly justify the price of a ticket. Some works deserve this format - Fabulous Beast's new production Bull was so crammed with ideas it could have managed 30 minutes more. But all too often audiences are required to sit though pieces that are simply killing time. Emio Greco's Hell, and most of Wim Vandekeybus's repertory, feel like works in which a few sparky ideas have been puffed up to preposterous size.
Wouldn't it be better to have a shapely, well-crafted 45 minutes of dance rather than a flatulent hour and a half, whose length has been determined by the financial and political agendas of programmers? It's a sobering thought that if Dudley tried to find a stage for Harmonica Breakdown in 2007, she would be laughed off the touring circuit.
