Last year I raved about Birmingham Royal Ballet, their artistic drive, their freshness, their impeccable artistic eclecticism and, not least, their superb dancing. It was with such memories that I went to Sadler’s Wells last week, only to leave both programmes with reservations and mixed feelings. Neither programme stood out for being particularly well constructed; one, titled Opposites Attract, lacked contrast and shadings, while the other suffered from excessive stylistic idiosyncrasy. David Bintley’s Take Five, to Dave Brubeck’s luscious jazz, strived to add sparkle, but did not succeed — surprisingly, one might add, given that it has all the right ingredients to be a success. But Bintley’s known and generally admired choreo-musical inventiveness failed to produce any memorable phrasing or ideas. The steps looked contrived and the overall impression was that of ballet dancers struggling to cope with the nuances of jazz body language.
His other work presented last week, the 2012 Faster, was not memorable either.
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