We may find it flattering that Royal New Zealand Ballet are touring the UK with a repertory choreographed by British-based artists. But the fact that all the ballets were commissioned within the past three years reflects even better on the company's own creative health and on the nerve of its director Gary Harris. Harris's most radical commission is Javier de Frutos's Milagros, a typically maverick setting of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Not only has De Frutos opted to use a rare piano roll recording of this iconic score but he's peopled it with men and women whose floating white costumes make them look like ghosts of Southern belles.
Its core is very formal: 12 dancers track Stravinsky's music in simple circles and daisy chains. Yet the tension in their bodies and outbreaks of raw reflex violence warn of a collective overheating of emotion. This is a world warding off catastrophe, and the fallout from its disintegrating relationships is revealed as explosive scenes shatter the surface of the dancing. Ugly standoffs and shivering revelations of desire hint at larger traumas, and when a man is chosen for the final blood-letting sacrifice there's a terrifying logic to his selection.
Milagros ranks as one of the great Rites - combining the collective potency of a ritual with the realisation of each dancer as a hauntingly believable individual.
By contrast, Christopher Hampson's Saltarello comes across as a sketchy first draft. Hampson has treated his accompanying 14th-century music like a medieval rock score, pumping up the stage energy with its drum line and using its ululating vocals for erotic lift. The men flex their muscles and the women swivel their eyes and hips in response. But while Hampson's steps are easy on the eye and flattering to the dancers, there seems little driving this piece beyond opportunistic display.
Mark Baldwin's FrENZy was clearly made for a Kiwi audience, given that its accompanying songs by New Zealand band Split Enz were huge there. Baldwin sets his steps skidding along the beat and edits in a niftily absurdist commentary on the lyrics. But the band's tinny, relentless upbeat make for a long session, and most of Baldwin's cultural references remain obscure. Some things don't travel - despite everyone's best intentions.
· Until Saturday. Box office: 0870 733 3900. Then touring.
