Out of lust, into panic

10 April 2012

The choreographer Kenneth MacMillan once said he was sick and tired of fairy tales, and it's a sentiment William Tuckett seems to share.

The Royal Ballet dancer and occasional choreographer has made a new pas de deux that rejects not only ballet's swans and sylphs but also the romantic fantasies of our time.

You know, the ones where you meet someone, fall in love and live happily, passionately ever after. It really is a fantasy, and Tuckett knows it better than most.

In Proverb, he zooms in on that terrifying moment when you fall out of lust, a simultaneous emotional landslide and romantic fall from grace. Tuckett's real-life wife, Zenaida Yanowsky, and former Royal dancer Adam Cooper perform the pas de deux of their careers, in turn heavy-hearted and frighteningly light-headed. You can almost feel the falling away.

Tuckett's designs are a bit bedsit (grimy sheets, tatty tracksuits), and his choreography is hardly innovative, but the small-scale piece is easily the highlight of the programme. This is a surprise, not because you doubt Tuckett's ability but because the competition is so intense.

Most of us would expect the combined talents of Sylvie Guillem, Ballet Boyz Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, and choreographer Russell Maliphant to clean up, provided, that is, the new piece by Wayne McGregor doesn't clean up first. The reason they don't is because they seem more interested in experiment than feeling.

Maliphant's Broken Fall portrays Guillem as a gymnast, which she used to be, with the Ballet Boyz her human pummel horse and parallel bars. In sports kit and knee pads, she tumbles all over them, and then swoops across them in Maliphant's signature fall. Guillem is approaching 40, and she's still a stunning dancer. However, Broken Fall offers her little emotional challenge, and the Ballet Boyz have done better as a duo.

The evening closed with Wayne McGregor's Qualia, another new piece that the Royal hopes will stretch its dancers. It starts with Edward Watson posing in his underwear, and ends, via frantically fast-paced dancing, with a duet for Watson and Leanne Benjamin. There are video projections and vivid lighting effects, the latter turning the dancers into sun-worshipper and their costumes into phosphorescent bikinis. However, the Royal doesn't yet look fully attuned to McGregor's highdefinition style, its fractured lines and insect-like moves. And without that, the piece looks harried.

In repertory until 12 December. Information: 020 7304 4000.

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