It has been 18 years since Houston Ballet last visited Britain and its dancers are obviously unknown here - which is one reason that the company's programme of mostly new one-act ballets is a good follow-up to the ballerina-oriented Cleopatra with which its season opened. On Wednesday most of the company took a turn centre stage and, during the course of the evening, demonstrated the entertaining mix of styles and personalities within Houston's ranks.
Mauricio Canete, for instance (who plays the wimpy Ptolemy in Cleopatra), turned out to have a fast and fizzy technique, with brisk feet and a surprising scale for such a small dancer. Mireille Hassenboehler danced with an admirably grown-up self-possession and elegance. There was also a brief appearance from the company's star principal, Carlos Acosta (well-known to London through his appearances with the Royal Ballet), who performed ballet's equivalent of a rodeo in the pas de deux from Petipa's Diana and Acteon.
Acosta, who has been with Houston since 1993, is a superb dance athlete - the dazzle with which he embellishes his enormous jumps is almost blinding. He also manages to combine classical grace with a spontaneous, ever so slightly louche charm. "Feral" has become Acosta's personal cliche - used a few times too many in his critical accolades - but he is without question a prince who's walked a little on the wild side.
He danced on Wednesday with Lauren Anderson, who also has a big stage personality and an exuberant attack. Unlike Acosta, though, her energy lacks classical finish. A technique that was turned to feisty and exotic purpose in Cleopatra looked naive and a little ragged in the refined sophistication of Petipa.
Diana and Acteon was a late addition to the programme and would have struck an oddly archaic note had the three new works looked more convincingly modern. It's a depressing feature of contemporary ballet-making that so few choreographers possess an idea that's original, let alone up to date (and if they do, they are rarely able to please their audience). Each of Houston's new ballets was actually a reworking of genres that have been playing on the international stage for years.
Trey McIntyre's Second Before the Ground was by far the best of the bunch, featuring some arrestingly inventive movement. But its material was made soft and sickly by falling into the groove of "romantic cute" - its performers forced to play the kind of whimsical courtship games that so often make ballet dancers look like prepubescent virgins rather than grown-up men and women.
Natalie Weir's In a Whisper (which was danced to a lugubrious playing of the Adagio from Schubert's String Quintet in C major) was a textbook study in ballet angst - its central male dancer locked in a sullen metaphysical grump and resisting any amount of pleading from his anguished friends. And finally came Stanton Welch's Bruiser, a perkily upbeat juggling of sports motifs - mostly coy boxing moves and muscular jogging. This is a ballet desperately seeking the funky common touch, only 30 years after Twyla Tharp found it first.
Further performances of Cleopatra tonight and tomorrow. Box office: 020-7863 8000.
