Birmingham REP
July 29, 2025
The welcome rebirth of London City Ballet and their debut Resurgence programme last year proved hugely popular, the company quite deservedly picking up Best Independent Company at the 2024 National Dance Awards. Artistic director Christopher Marney’s new Momentum quadruple-bill doesn’t just build on that but is a real shifting through the gears. The whole ensemble looked at the top of their game in an evening that brings together a rarely seen Balanchine ballet, a new piece by Paris Opera Ballet premier danseur Florent Melac, and works by Liam Scarlett and Alexei Ratmansky.
Originally made for Ballet Society (later New York City Ballet), George Balanchine’s Haieff Divertimento may date from 1947 but remains as fresh as a daisy. Having disappeared from the NYCB repertory in 1952, the ‘black-and-white with a dash of blue’ ballet was only saved from oblivion by then State Ballet of Missouri artistic director Todd Bolender and Francisco Moncion, two members of the original cast, who revived it in 1985. The ballet is now back in the NYCB repertory but its outings remain few and far between. One wonders why, because it’s a delight from start to finish, especially when in the hands of an ensemble as good as London City Ballet.
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Right from the first seconds, no programme note is needed to tell you who the choreographer is. The 14-minute ballet is typically Balanchine in its off-centre movement and the way popular American dance and concert dance are fused with classical steps.
Through the silky precision of its five movements, the ballet is an excellent company showcase. Everyone shone, although the highlight was undoubtedly the second movement blues pas de deux for Jimin Kim and Alejandro Virelles, she deliciously sinuous as she stretched and bent in his arms. Kim also shone in the quiet fourth movement Lullaby, an adagio where she appeared to savour every moment of the slightly haunting music. When she stepped onto pointe gazing upwards, arms open, she looked very alone.
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The other three sections are rather bouncier and brighter, Balanchine’s choreography matching American composer Alexei Haieff’s slightly jazzy, slightly Stravinsky-like intricate score perfectly. The men get some fabulous solos and there’s a lot of tricky pointework for the women, who in one ensemble dance, have to wait their turn, standing on pointe in fourth position.
Consolations & Liebestraum, one of Liam Scarlett’s early creations to Franz Liszt’s eponymous composition, essentially consists of three pas de deux, all quite dark, all choreographically complex, but all very different in intent. ‘Liebestraum’ translates as ‘dreams of love’, which when taken with the first part of the title, tells you all you need to know.
After a brief solo in which Alina Cojocaru appears to be dreaming of love, the three pas de deux that follow can be seen as three couples, or as three pairs of dancers illustrating different stages of the same relationship. Apart from the fine dancing and partnering, what really made the ballet was that all three were utterly believable.
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In the first, Yuria Isaka and Arthur Wille are in its early stages, still working each other out, their dance full of uncertainty. Jimin Kim and Nicholas Vavrečka are past that, their more complex relationship full of passion as she rejects but can’t stop herself wanting him in equal measure. Vavrečka’s partnering was fabulous, not only were the overhead lifts solid, but also the way Kim came down into his arms.
In the third pas de deux, Cojocaru is clearly unconvinced by the advances of Joseph Taylor, pushing him away again and again until he finally leaves. What has happened, or why the relationship doesn’t work, is not revealed. As the ballet comes full circle, leaving her alone, still dreaming, what is very apparent however is Cojocaru’s utter devastation, despite the fact it was her who insisted he left.
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Soft Shore by Florent Melac, premier danseur at the Paris Opera Ballet, a ballet of two duets, for Arthur Wille and Taylor, then Constance Devernay-Laurence and Virelles, is a little out of the same mould. Performed to the slow and somewhat mournful third movement of Beethoven’s ‘Razumovsky’ String Quartet, and then to the Moonlight Sonata, it’s a very appealing watch. For all the superb dancing, especially of the feather-light Devernay-Laurence who seems to suspend again and again in the choreography’s continuous circular movement, the ballet doesn’t hit the same emotional heights as the Scarlett, however.
The closing Pictures at an Exhibition by Alexei Ratmansky interprets Modest Mussorgsky’s eponymous piano composition in which he attempts to translate into music the art works of Viktor Hartmann, seen in a retrospective exhibition in 1874, a year after the artist’s death. The full title of Mussorgsky’s work is actually Pictures at an Exhibition – A Remembrance of Viktor Hartmann.
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Rather than use Hartmann’s work as a backdrop, Ratmansky decorates the backdrop with ever-changing watercolours by Wassily Kandinsky. Likewise, the cast of ten perform constantly changing scenes in choreography. Just as the pictures in one’s gaze as one walks through a gallery constantly change, so the often-witty choreography changes with the music, with some drama and humour along the way. Whether Ratmansky intends any hidden meaning is unclear, except for the joyful finale, a dance of hope and freedom, when Kandinsky gives way to the Ukrainian flag.
Momentum is a fine evening of the best in dance. Not to be missed.
London City Ballet’s Momentum programme continues on tour to November 22, 2025. Click here for dates, venues and booking links.