Sadler's Wells might be best known as the British home of contemporary dance, staging performances by figures from Matthew Bourne to Pina Bausch; but now it is to play host to deadpan electronica duo the Pet Shop Boys. The pair let slip on Radio 2 at the weekend that they are writing a ballet score. "It's like a Tchaikovsky ballet in that it's based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen," Neil Tennant said.
The work is not the band's first foray into instrumental music: they have written a soundtrack to the film The Battleship Potemkin, and recently performed with the BBC Concert Orchestra. But this is their first ballet, to be choreographed by Javier de Frutos, and performed in 2011.
In the more immediate future, Sadler's artistic director Alistair Spalding has commissioned four new works from four top choreo-graphers, premiering this October to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the Ballets Russes by Serge Diaghilev. De Frutos is making a piece set to Ravel's La Valse. Wayne McGregor is to work with artists Jane and Louise Wilson, and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui will make a new version of L'Après-Midi d'un Faune, originally choreographed by Nijinsky, while Nijinsky's frenetic drawings will provide a starting point for Russell Maliphant.
"It's one of those moments in dance history that's difficult to divorce yourself from," said Spalding of the shadow cast by Diaghilev. "It's impossible to replicate what happened at that time, with artists like Picasso, Cocteau, Stravinsky, Ravel and Debussy working together. But what we want to do is to keep the spirit alive."
On a slightly less exalted note, today the theatre is launching an online video competition, in which aspiring dancers and choreographers can compete for a cash prize and a chance to perform on the Sadler's stage.
