Ballet Central

Linbury Theatre, Royal Ballet & Opera, London
June 17, 2025

It has long been the tradition that the final year students of London’s Central School of Ballet tour as Ballet Central. Although the tours are somewhat shorter than they used to be, performing in nine venues, all in the south of England, still gives the young dancers invaluable first-hand experience of what the practicalities of being in a touring company is like: the travelling, get-ins and get-outs, and different size stages.

At the Linbury Theatre, the company presented four works, classical and contemporary. Three were new commissions, although it was the fourth, a reconstruction of Frederick Ashton’s early Foyer de Danse that held the most interest.

From 1932, it has only resurfaced thanks to the painstaking work over many years of Ursula Hageli, who pieced together short pieces of amateur film footage without sound, shot at the Mercury Theatre as something of an experiment, matching it to Lord Berners’ animated score. Of course, as with any reconstruction of a ‘lost’ work, we can never really be sure just how accurate it is (indeed, I would argue that 100% accuracy is impossible for a whole host of reasons), but it’s probably as close as anyone is going to get.

Set in a ballet studio, it brings Degas’ well-known ballet paintings to life. The whole ballet is a caricature of ballet company life. It starts with six coryphées in romantic tutus taking a class of sorts under the watchful eye of a Maître de ballet. Joseph Burdett does a neat take on the ballet master (danced by Ashton himself in 1932), and there’s a hint that one of the dancers has eyes for him. It’s pleasing but no more.

Things change with the arrival of L’Etoile (originally danced by Alicia Markova), who is pursued by a wealthy patron. Hannah Noh was maybe a little low key in her characterisation, but there was nothing understated about her dancing in her short pas de deux with Burdett, who also thrilled in his solos, leaping high, landing softly. A short dance for the coryphées also features the fast quick footwork for which Ashton was already becoming known. Elsewhere Foyer de Danse didn’t quite have what we now regard as ‘Ashton style,’ but then in 1932 he was still finding his way. Why would it?

What with her work with The Royal Ballet, making a new full-length piece for London Children’s Ballet and other commitments, I’m not sure how Kristen McNally finds enough hours in the day to fit everything in.

The show opened with McNally’s FEAST, set to a new score by Central’s music director, Philip Feeney, played live. It sees her is quirky neoclassical mood. Mixing classical ballet steps (there are a lot of fast bourrées for the women) with the classical Ancient Egyptian image of figures with arms held in front, elbows bent, wrists flexed with palms up), the movement is heavily punctuated. The work focuses on comings together, with McNally creating and shifting lines and patterns to great effect. The final, upbeat, ensemble section is especially vibrant.

Rise by Dickson Mbi opens on a dark scene. Dancers lay face down as spotlights circle. It feels very primal as they start to wriggle across the floor towards the one woman who starts apart from the rest. As the work develops, as the dancers come together, it takes on a distinctly tribal feel, a feeling magnified when the ensemble form a circle, one woman at its centre. Bodies pulse with energy throighout. There is much body percussion as feet stamp, hands slap, all very rhythmically. Not only was it the best of the new works, it was also the best costumed, everyone (men included) in flattering long black skirts.

The closing Keeping Up with the Apocalypse by Thick & Tight (Daniel Hay-Gordon and El Perry) is a skit on greed, vanity and the absurdity of a species bringing about its own undoing.

A voiceover tells us we are in the year 4025. After a 1,000-year war, only one species remains on the post-apocalyptic landscape that is now Earth: The Kardashians. They may no longer have an audience but they’re still only interested only in money and performing.

Dressed in striking, glossy, tight-fitting black and gold bodysuits, the cast swagger and parade themselves, miming to songs from John Adams’ Nixon in China. It’s slick. The dancers give it their all in a piece that feels very West End, although as a piece of choreography or satire, it didn’t work for me.

Ballet Central continues on tour. Click here for dates and venues.