Birmingham Royal Ballet's latest contribution to the Birmingham Stravinsky Festival is a challenging watch. Not only is the entire programme devoted to one choreographer, George Balanchine, but it represents him at his most austere. Agon, Stravinsky Violin Concerto and Symphony in Three Movements are performed on a bare stage in uniform black and white practice dress. As a statement of what pure dance can attain, however, this classy programme could not have been more thrilling.
To watch three Balanchine works in succession is to get deep inside the mindset of the great man. Four-square classical phrases are toughened and abraded into jagged blocks of rhythm; duets become encounters of drastic erotic intent. Simple folk steps are elaborated into abstract, infinitely varied patterns.
For the dancers, exposure to Balanchine's invention can be an equally transforming experience. It's true that in Agon, some of the youngest dancers look as through the acerbically cavalier choreography might turn round and bite. Yet among the men, Robert Parker was as forceful as I've ever seen him. In the central pas de deux, Jenna Roberts is a revelation. She danced like a blue-blooded Lolita, an imperious teen siren with a fully adult knowledge of her power to seduce and inflict damage. In the last two ballets, it was Nao Sakuma who shined - a delicate queen spider, spinning the threads of her own beauty.
But the ultimate star of this triple bill is the Royal Ballet Sinfonia who, under conductor Philip Ellis, honour every note Stravinsky wrote.
· Until Saturday (0870 787 5790), then touring.
