Fumi Kaneko

Any evening devoted to the multifaceted genius of George Balanchine is something to be grateful for, manna in the wilderness indeed, but the Royal Ballet’s current offering left me hungry for more. Three works were on the programme, all created in the early stage of the great man’s career, two of them widely familiar, none of them reflective of anything he created post-war for New York City Ballet. Are his executors reluctant to licence productions of later masterpieces such as Agon or Stravinsky Violin Concerto, or is the Royal Ballet fighting shy of their stylistic challenges? Gripe over, and let’s just rejoice in a feast of superb choreography at Covent

Ruination begins with an ironic prologue in which a choric figure warns the audience that what follows makes unlikely matter for the festive season: look elsewhere if you’re after light entertainment, he says, because this is going to shake you up a bit. And it does. This is genre-defying physical theatre, ‘devised’ by Ben Duke, in which spoken text is combined with episodes of dance and interludes of song, playfully satirical in tone and uprooted from any boundaries of realism or historical period. Although it is somewhat pretentious, I pretty much loved it The choric figure is Hades, and his realm of death is the setting. Jason and Medea have

My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s certainly a mint-cool, squeaky-clean, future-perfect affair. The set by Carmen Herrera, subtly lit by Lucy Carter, suggests infinite space and distant horizons. The costumes by Burberry are streamlined and sexless. Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s vaporous score hovers over it all in a meditative trance. Ordinary human emotions struggle to express themselves in this brave new world: we have left planet Earth. McGregor’s strengths and weaknesses are highlighted: on the credit side, there’s his energy and intelligence, his sophisticated visual taste, his empowering of young talent, his open questioning of boundaries, and readiness