Ballet Nights at Cadogan Hall

Cadogan Hall, London
September 4, 2024

Ballet Nights has taken the advice meted out to the apocryphal young man and ‘gone west,’ its latest iteration being at the Cadogan Hall in the heart of Chelsea. It opened as usual with house pianist Viktor Erik Emanuel, here playing Chopin’s Ballade No.1 in G minor. What a shame that it was so over-amplified, as indeed was most of the evening.

The opening dance work, September In The Rain, is an amuse bouche. Danced by Constance Devernay-Laurence, it’s a bit of a ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ piece. Jordan James Bridge’s jazzy choreography is fine, although it was not so much accompanied by a melancholic autumn storm as a fully-fledged Frankenstein thunder job that frequently threatened to upstage the dancer.

Volume aside, Tanzt was much more exciting. Accompanied by a singer and violinist, James Pett and Travis Clausen-Knight match well choreography with text, enhancing the meaning of both. Dancers Rebecca Bassett-Graham and Pett produced a frisson of tension in their relationship that fed into nuanced movement, the couple ably supported by singer/composer Madril Harris’ clear diction.

The Bolshoi-trained American Joy Womak made her London début with Introducing Joy, a short work by Constant Vigier to music by Glinka. The scope of the small Cadogan Hall stage encourages an intimate presentation and enabled Womak to highlight her expression as much as technique.

In most other similar programmes, Tanzt would have been the stand-out work. However, that reckons without Grace O’Brien’s Set Fast. An evening that is hosted can err towards hyperbole in the introductions but here it was richly deserved. O’Brien’s maturity of approach has produced a work for seven dancers from the of Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance that is a visual expression of Laban’s theories of geometry.

From the opening where jiggling dancers subtly move apart, eye and brain are constantly challenged and the sense of humour tickled. The ensemble work was pretty much perfect, every gesture co-ordinated, the dancers very obviously breathing and feeling it together too. O’Brien looks like one to watch for the future.

Sangeun Lee and Gareth Haw polished off the first half with a very pleasing White Swan Pas de deux from Swan Lake. They filled the stage with such emotion that the lack of a framing corps was less jarring than usual, not an easy task when conjured from nowhere and out of context.

Following another piano solo – this time Ravel, the second act of dance kicked off in silence. In Rentaro Nakaaki’s Cha Cha and Tiara, Julia Conway and Eric Snyder started in black dinner suits with white ruffled shirts, the intensity of their interactions then going hand in hand with the slow peeling off of top layers, much as a would-be pugilist might divest himself of a confining jacket. Synder swung Conway at the extremity of her stretch, lifted her and dumped her unceremoniously round his feet. Then the music began and their agon wended its way wittily through the promised ballroom.

The much-misunderstood Rudyard Kipling would have been utterly bemused by If, a rendition of his famous poem choreographed by Ballet Nights presenter and host, Jamiel Deveurney-Laurence. The poem was written when Kipling was middle-aged, although it embodies the wisdom of a lifetime. In typical English fashion, it was actually a tribute to the leader of failed Boer War raid. I suspect Deveurney-Laurence’s choreography is probably attempting to be illustrative but it succeeds only in highlighting how detached it is from the meaning of the text. Jonzi D appearing to get lost in his narration of the read text did not help, with all depth of elucidation becoming squandered.

Nick Mullikin’s Leto is a pleasant, traditional work performed by Sarah Pierce and James Lankford guesting from Nashville Ballet to more Ravel. It may be a company unknown here but the performance was charming and accomplished. Leto would sit happily on any gala programme or mixed bill. No fireworks. Just good, classical, solid dance.

‘Summer’ from Four Seasons took us back to the contemporary, the music alas not Glazunov, but mashed-up Vivaldi as envisaged by Max Richter. The score has gained traction as it is thought to appeal to familiarity without straying into the over-familiar. It does nothing to enlighten however, and Sarah Jane Taylor and James Wilton, both choreographing and dancing, while pleasing, failed to lift it out of the ordinary either.

In Fortitudine, the recovering from injury Steven McRae substituted the challenges of the planned Czardas with tap. The new butch tap as brought to us by the likes of Stomp. The kilted McRae also started in silence, or rather without music, because we had some teasing, then fast and furious tapping. When violinist Charlie Siem joined him for some equally challenging finger work, the second section whizzed by and left the audience, as all good performances should, wanting more.

Ballet Nights managed to fill the Cadogan (much larger than Lanterns Studio Theatre, the venue for all previous shows) which bodes well for the success of the venture. A mixed bill brought, inevitably perhaps, mixed success but without a shadow of a doubt, it was worth it for Set Fast alone. If Ballet Nights continues to nurture that level of talent, then long may it continue. It would help if it turned the sound down though.