Elmhurst Ballet Company: Odyssey

Lilian Baylis Studio Theatre, Sadler’s Wells, London
March 14, 2026

This evening with Elmhurst Ballet Company, the graduate company of Elmhurst Ballet School, felt like it was a performance by two different ensembles. The programme was divided into classical repertoire and contemporary pieces, and the difference could not have been more marked.

In the first half, the students presented two pieces by August Bournonville, Dances from Napoli and Le Conservatoire. Perhaps it was the choice of pieces, perhaps it was nerves, but the quality of dancing fell short. Done well, Bournonville is beautiful. But it’s also tough. With its quicksilver batterie, lightness, sense of joy but also grace, it’s probably the most difficult of all the styles to execute well. The Elmhurst dancers looked uncomfortable throughout. They appeared stiff, technique was not all it might be and ensemble work was out of kilter. They weren’t helped by some unexciting staging.

The second, contemporary half of the show could hardly have been more different. In all four pieces by Miguel Altunaga, Dane Bates Wayne McGregor and Elmhurst Ballet Company artist Alicia Wong, the dancers were transformed. It was indeed like watching a completely different ensemble. Here were professional, talented, technically highly competent, and engaged dancers.

Each piece presented a different challenge, which the performers approached with skill, and the emotional involvement that had been missing from the Bournonville. Some of the music was challenging. However, everyone found the rhythm and fluidity needed to work with the challenge, drawing the audience in as they did so.

Alicia Wong’s new Everyone’s Busy is an interesting piece, with creative dance design and ever-changing floor patterns. In Ascension, Dane Bates catches well the sense of community and conflict that exists within each of us, using expressive contemporary movement. The costumes worked against the choreography and a rethink here would improve the overall visual effect, however.

Ek.sta.sis is described as an “archaeology of the self through movement.“ It is high octane and energetic, Altunaga making great use of dense patterns that constantly shift and change. It gives the dancers scope for personal interpretation, which they used to good effect.

The highlight was undoubtedly the excerpt from Wayne McGregor’s Entity, however. Created in 2008, the award-winning ballet still astounds. The Elmhurst graduates gave it their all, and the result was electric. It was hard to believe that these were the same dancers we had watched battle through the first half’s classical pieces. Now, we saw the true mettle of these young performers. Now, we saw that the best of them could match-up to the best dancers graduating from top schools worldwide. I wish them well, and look forward to following their careers.