New York City Ballet visits to London are a rarity, and few fans over here possess an intimate sense of who's who within the company's ranks. If the chamber evening currently being performed by 10 NYCB principals and soloists is a treat, that is partly because it gives us such close-up views of the dancers' styles and personalities.
Wendy Whelan, bone-thin and restless, looks like the Sarah Jessica Parker of the company, but a dark intelligence brings depth and an intriguing weirdness to her feistiness. It is she who strikes the dominant note in the opening ballet, Jerome Robbins's In the Night (1970), and she who lets loose the choreography's demons.
Robbins's setting of Chopin nocturnes is cast for three couples, and its classically romantic choreography moves from formal courtship through urbane elegance to a wary combativeness. Whelan and Jock Soto's bold athleticism underlines in guts and nerve the on-off uncertainties of their duo's relationship. Their deviancies contrast sharply with the calm beauties of Peter Boal and Jennie Somogyi's pas de deux, especially since Boal himself is so much Whelan's opposite.
However fast Boal's movements, he is powered by a still core of certainty. I have never seen his performance in Balanchine's Duo Concertant bettered for understanding. This 1972 work contains long periods during which the two dancers are required to stand and listen to the musicians playing on stage. For the dancers these can be a self-conscious nightmare. Yvonne Borree's expression of forced attentiveness is understandable but it highlights the lively grace of Boal's absorption in the music and the ease with which he takes its cues to dance.
Billed alongside the company's old masters are two recent works from the repertory. Benjamin Millepied's Triple Duet is a setting of Bach's Partita in A minor that initially puts its dancers through some straightforwardly pretty paces. The final Corrente, however, whips them into coltish bursts of speed and reveal Craig Hall in particular to be a poised and witty performer. By contrast, Christopher Wheeldon's Polyphonia is a study in fierce invention. Created for four couples, its choreography shatters and sparkles around the dancers' limbs as Wheeldon seeks out a route through Ligeti's knotted piano music. At the core of the piece are the duets for Whelan and Soto. In pure physical terms, his muscular burnish and her wiry flexibility produce stark and shocking dance sculpture. Dramatically, their coiled interaction, so deadly, provocative and needy, is even more breathtaking. This is a pure dance piece that tells an intense and multi-layered story.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
