Choreographers: George Balanchine, Liam Scarlett, Florent Melac and Alexei Ratmansky
Director: Christopher Marney
The newly re-established London City Ballet returns to Sadler’s Wells for the second successive year with Momentum, a quartet of pieces that the company have rediscovered, some of which have not been performed for several decades or were believed ‘lost’ – a unique direction for the Ballet and a highly successful one if this anthology of works is any measure. Connected by the emotional fluctuations of relationships and the challenges of supporting a partner in good times and bad, Momentum is an absorbing 100 minutes of range and technical skill.
The most emotionally engaging piece is performed second, Liam Scarlett’s Consolations and Liebestraum, which uses three couples to chart the changing pattern of a relationship from spirited young love to a more complex trauma of distance and break-up. Scarlett’s piece, originally devised in 2009, is beautifully expressive across its three ages, taking a playful and carefree young woman through life, her initial freedom in contrast to Franz Liszt’s lightly mournful piano music. After the lightness of the first romance, which is sweet and gentle, the second pas de deux is a mature reflection on an established relationship, the couple richer and more entwined in a melodious partnership within the dance. Their familiarity with one another has a practised ease in this London City Ballet staging which towards the end reveals touches of conflict, As the two eras dance side-by-side – a lovely segue to the darker final act – the eventual couple are in emotive conflict, unable to look at one another, their love dying around them as the try to flee from one another, unwilling to quite let go of what they had.
Scarlett’s triptych is flanked by Floret Melac’s Soft Shore and George Balanchine’s Haieff Divertimento, the former a chance to see some mixed pairings as two couples, one same sex, are taken on a poetic journey through their differing emotions. Dressed in silky outfits by costume design Xavier Ronze, the dance has a soft fluidity that takes the couples through phases of shaping and reflection. Balanchine’s piece also has a story arc of sorts, a tasting menu of five short bursts of dance, which was reconstructed in 1981, having been ‘lost’ since the 1950s. Haieff Divertimento is about loneliness and partnership, a single dancer left unpartnered among a sea of couples is rewarded with a pair until she disappears like a dream, and while the staging of this piece feels a little spartan relative to the other performances, there’s much to enjoy in its frothy pace.
Momentum certainly builds towards the big event, a staging of Alexei Ratmansky’s 2014 work Pictures at an Exhibition that fills the stage with colour and style as the ten dancers of the London City Ballet enact a series of projected artworks by Wassily Kandinsky, all expressionist angular pieces that feature squares and swirls. The references to the art-inspired ballet from An American in Paris are clear, and there is a 1960s feel to the styling of this latest version in A-line dresses designed by Adeline André that bursts with personality and, often, moments of comedy, even cheekiness, as well as drama and connection between the performers.
It’s a fitting end to a delightful programme of rediscovered treasures. Artistic Director Christopher Marney describes London City Ballet as emerging from its 30-year slumber, but as Momentum proves, the company is now wide awake.
Runs until 14 September 2025
