This was Tamara Rojo’s farewell to English National Ballet and to the UK. The charismatic artistic director is off now to San Francisco, leaving behind a company that is slightly poorer than she might have hoped (thanks to the Arts Council’s recent round of cuts) but infinitely richer artistically than when she joined a decade ago.
The reach of her transformative ambition is shown by the fact that the final work on this programme was a new version of The Rite of Spring (thrillingly played by a full orchestra) by the distinguished Swedish choreographer Mats Ek, someone who hasn’t made nearly enough work for British companies.
Beautiful to look at, with oyster-sheen costumes by Marie-Louise Ekman that fall into angular shapes as the dancers move, it conceives this ferocious rite as an intimate family drama, with Emily Suzuki’s bride breaking the bonds of tradition represented by her parents (Erina Takahashi and James Streeter) and their friends, who fly on to the stage in sinuous rows.
Ek brilliantly carves new paths through the familiar music, finding sharp, stylised thrusts of the arms and feet to conjure the constraints of society and a desperate flow of unconstrained emotion when the girl meets her groom, bending beneath his body like a frightened animal. It’s fantastically original, riveting in the power it gives to the sacrificial victim and the images it creates – a Rite for the #MeToo era.
The programme opens with the glory of Blake Works I, William Forsythe’s love letter to the music of James Blake and to the world of classical dance, its flirty, clever steps performed with panache and clear relish by a company that is dancing beautifully. The final duet – for Emma Hawes and Aitor Arrieta – is full of a constrained tenderness, gentle circles of enveloping longing. I’d take it to a desert island.
Between these two mighty male choreographic beasts, Stina Quagebeur impressively holds her own with Take Five Blues, a piece conceived for film in lockdown, but which elegantly fills the stage with its punchy, relaxed dynamics, as if a group of friends had just put on Nigel Kennedy playing Bach and begun to dance.
