It's not just Richard Alston's programme note that tells you how deeply his latest work has been inspired by the Jerome Robbins classic, Dances at a Gathering. Not only is Such Longing set to Chopin piano music (like the Robbins) but it's rich in similar romantic references - hints of spry, folksy footwork and soft, irresolute arms that look nothing like Alston's usual dance language.
But Such Longing is much, much more than a homage - for Alston uses the bare foot heft and sensuality of his modern dancers to give the choreography a very different physical charge. The dancers' sudden darts of speed, their fierce moments of stillness touch raw nerves in Chopin that go way beyond Robbins' scope. And this sense of an almost flayed engagement with the music is doubled by pianist Jason Ridgeway (playing live on stage) who performs with something like a dancer's sensibility. His ability to transmit the physical pleasure of fingering the notes and to project and place the sound in space combines with Alston's choreography to create one of the most visceral experiences of Chopin on stage.
There's another strong dose of central European romanticism in the score for Alston's other new work, Gypsy Mixture, but this DJ remix, which overlays Balkan music with the sounds of techno beats, dogs and bicycle bells feels like it's coming from a very 21st-century Bohemia. For the first five minutes Alston makes you worry that he hasn't got the music - the dancers may be dressed in vivid motley but their moves look staid. Then suddenly the piece discovers its inner devils and the dancers begin to swagger and shimmy a glittering path through the music's clashing rhythmic mesh. Most glittering of all is Jonathan Goddard, for whom Alston has invented an audacious language of off-balanced jumps and turns. He swerves so fast, so cockily around the stage, it's a miracle he stays on his feet.
But Goddard is also part of an exceptionally fine ensemble. This year Alston is celebrating his company's 10th anniversary and across the full range of the programme (completed by his own Fever and Marin Lawrance's slick, edgy, crowd-pleaser Charge) this current team of dancers couldn't be serving him better.
· At Sadler's Wells, London EC1, February 23-26. Box office: 0870 737 7737.
