American Ballet Theatre Studio Company in London

Linbury Theatre, The Royal Ballet & Opera, London
June 10, 2025

Making a welcome return to The Royal Ballet’s Next Generation Festival, the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company presented a well-curated programme that showcased the dancers’ skills across a range of ballet styles, works old and new, solos pas de deux and group pieces, all culminating in Jerome Robbins’ American classic, Interplay.

Led by artistic director Sascha Radetsky, the ensemble is a vital stepping stone as its young dancers transition from student to professional. It was no real surprise therefore that it was the works which made the most of their youth and that encouraged a ‘go for it’ mentality that proved the most successful. There were a lot of very fast multiple pirouettes and tours en l’air, all excellently performed.

The pas de deux from Birthday Variations by Gerald Arpino
(pictured: Sooha Park and Max Barker)
Photo Emma Zordan

Things got off to a flying start with George Balanchine’s relentlessly fast Tarantella, danced by the sparkling Kayla Mak and Max Barker. Mak has a lovely winning smile and danced with pinpoint accuracy. More the classicist of the pair, Barker achieved prodigious height on his leaps. Full of the requisite energy, and with just a little bit of flirting with each other, both looked like they were enjoying themselves immensely; as was the audience.

A change of mood and style came with the Rose Adagio from The Sleeping Beauty with Sooha Park as Aurora. She oozed confidence and super technique, so it was a surprise that none of the balances looked desperately secure. Arms were up to fifth and down to her next partner in a spilt second.

Originally commissioned by Becky D’Angelo as a 65th birthday gift for her husband, Dino D’Angelo, who then owned Chicago’s Civic Opera House, Gerald Arpino’s 1986 ballet, Birthday Variations is set to a medley of operatic melodies by Giuseppe Verdi. Although it has its virtuoso moments for each of its five women and one man, it has decided echoes of ballets such as Les Sylphides. The central pas de deux is certainly a mistily Romantic affair, if a little frothy and one that says little out of context. Natalie Steele and Maximilian Catazaro imbued it with all the little touches and subtlety required.

A second dose of fireworks came in the short but show-off Gopak variation. Ptolemy Gidney gave it his all in pyrotechnics that thrilled the audience.

U Don’t Know Me by Houston Thomas
(pictured: Daniel Guzmán and Natalie Steele)
Photo Emma Zordan

Arvo Pärt’s Fratres has been used by numerous choreographers but Houston Thomas’ U Don’t Know Me is one of the better creations to the composition. Specially commissioned for the Studio Company, it seeks to explore the intricacies between first impressions and their often unseen repercussions. I’m not convinced that is entirely clear, although it is a dance of fleeting encounters between couples.

It certainly succeeds in challenging the dancers in a way that the out-and-out classical works in particular do not. The whole cast showed super dramatic and dynamic range, with no-one short on partnering skills. Again, though, it was the wonderful Kayla Mak, who fully realised what was required the most.

Night Falls by Brady Farrar
(pictured: Kayke Carvalho and YeonSeo Choi)
Photo Matt Dine

The Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake always seems a little problematic for young dancers. It’s not that they don’t have the technique or the steps. They most definitely do. But Odile requires a maturity and depth of character to really make those watching believe she is weaving her womanly wiles as she reels in her catch. YeonSeo Choi doesn’t quite have it yet, although I have no doubt it will come with experience. Technically, she was excellent, though, while her Siegfried, Maximilian Catazaro, was extremely attentive, with his turns razor sharp.

Night Falls by Brady Farrar, is a well-crafted, tender, pas de deux to Frederick Chopin’s melancholic Nocturne No.19 in E Minor, was a delight. Dancers Paloma Livellara and Elijah Geolina captured beautifully the work’s themes of love and death. Watching Livellara slowly weaken as she gradually succumbs was quite moving.

If there was any doubt that Kayla Mak is going to be a force to be reckoned with, it came in Human, a solo by Yannick Lebrun to Ngwa by Cameroonian singer-songwriter, Blick Bassy. Sung in Bassa, Bassy’s ancestral language, the song deals with the torment his countrymen endured during colonialism, and honours the lives that were uprooted and lost. The dance carries a lot more meaning once you know that. The lithe, supple Mak not only dealt with the choreography’s requirements with ease, especially the different textures within the movement, but communicated the emotion therein too. As good as she was in the earlier pieces, Human makes me think that contemporary dance may be her future.

It’s remarkable to think that Mak is only now about to graduate from the Juilliard School in New York. London audiences will get a second chance to see her this summer when she dances Juliano Nunes’ new Romeo and Juliet duet in the Gala de Danza at Central Hall Westminster on June 25 and 26.

Kayla Mak in Human by Yannick Lebrun
Photo Rosalie O’Connor

And so to Jerome Robbins’ irresistible Interplay, danced to Morton Gould’s infectious American Concertette. Originally choreographed for Billy Rose’s Concert Varieties, the ballet may have been premiered way back on June 1, 1945 (its New York City Ballet debut followed seven years later), but it still looks and feels incredibly fresh.

Something of an American masterpiece, it carries beautifully the spirit of the time. It’s also not difficult to see elements and common themes from the ballet in Robbins’ later and more widely known 1957 Broadway production of West Side Story, not least the rivalry between two gangs, although in Interplay that rivalry is very friendly, the gangs having being picked in turn. The ballet also has strong connections with another of the choreographer’s ‘New York ballets’, the 1958 NY Export: Opus Jazz.

The stage is bare but it’s not difficult to imagine the scene as a playground. The costumes are brightly coloured, the women have their hair in ponytails. It’s very youthful.

Each movement takes on a different mood or tone from youthful high spirits, through playing the fool and dreaming love, before ending in friendly competition.

Interplay by Jerome Robbins,
featuring Maximilian Catazaro and company
Photo Matt Dine

The first two movements, ‘Free Play’ and ‘Horseplay,’ are full of youthful energy. The dancers play lots of childlike games: follow the leader, leapfrog and such-like. Max Barker was a delight in ‘Horseplay’ acting the fool and teasing his friends with joyous delight.

The third movement, Byplay, is different, however. It’s a sultry, slinky, sensual pas de deux. With the rest of the cast resting at the sides, the enchanting YeonSeo Choi and Elijah Geolina mad it seem like stime stood still. And when the others wake up, their Fosse-like choreography just adds to the jazz-club feel. Smooth doesn’t even start to describe it. Even here, you can’t help but smile though.

The final movement is just fun all the way as, having picked ‘sides’, the dancers go for broke trying to outdo each other, especially the men, who engage in a game of ‘who can do the most consecutive double tours en l’air’. One, two, three, then four. And yes, all were perfectly nailed.

It really was a wonderful way to round off a hugely enjoyable evening.

Presented as part of The Royal Ballet’s Next Generation Festival.