Nothing could be more expressive of English National Ballet's determination to shake up its image than Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur in Wayne McGregor's duet, 2 Human. With their hair gelled and spiked, Oakes in a camouflage-print tutu and Edur with "live fast" scrawled on his tee shirt, the couple could hardly deviate more from their usual classical image.
Yet McGregor's choreography takes them even further off base. Set to Bach's Violin Partita No 2, the piece alternates between a combative duelling of wills and restless bouts of junkie ennui. The dancers' rigid, angry limbs slice each others air space, their wilful gestures strafe the music's rhythms.
Yet McGregor, inspired by Oaks's extravagantly supple body and Edur's clever compact strength, makes this encounter much more than a study of aggressive attitude. The dancers twist the seemingly predictable lines of their fast-slamming moves into images of sudden beauty and emotion; their fiercely animated bodies seem to be engaged in a huge, even heroic argument. Oaks, with her plumed pony tail and tatty skirt, is eloquently wild and curious, a punk Firebird battling with Edur's rebel Prince.
The other new item on ENB's spring programme is Christopher Hampson's Trapeze, set to the recently reassembled Prokofiev ballet score of 1924. Though the music wasn't commissioned for Les Ballets Russes, Hampson picks up on its pungent Diaghilev flavour.
His dancers are slightly disreputable circus folk who pose for each other with a great deal of ironic narcissism, and swap sexual partners with little regard to gender. His choreography is a mix of acrobatics (two dancers operating deftly on the huge trapeze centre stage) and cool neoclassicism.
Hampson is a fluent and inventive choreographer, and he never runs out of steps to articulate Prokofiev's score. There is, though, a crucial element of personality, a crucial twist of fantasy lacking from the piece, and this is perversely highlighted by the programme's other circus-inspired work, Manoeuvre (receiving its London premiere).
Philip Feeney's score may be far less brilliant and Patrick Lewis's choreography less subtle, yet this showcase for eight faux-male acrobats has a romping energy that galvanises both the dancers and the audience.
Still, it has been a coup for ENB to have acquired the Trapeze score, and even more of a coup for them to have assembled such a sparkily mixed repertory for their spring tour. Along with Cathy Marston's powerfully imagined Facing Viv, these ballets make ENB look more interesting, more versatile, more intelligent than they have in a long while.
· Until May 3. Box office: 020-7863 8000. Then touring.
