Resurgence, London City Ballet: A respectable return for Diana’s favourite dance company

London City Ballet in Larina Waltz, by Ashley Page
London City Ballet in Larina Waltz, by Ashley Page - ASH

Founded in 1978, London City Ballet was well loved and well reviewed, enthusiastically patronised by Diana, Princess of Wales, but disbanded in 1996 due to a chronic lack of funds. Indeed, in one of the filmed montages included in Resurgence, its first night at its (rebuilt) former home of Sadler’s Wells, the Arts Council almost immediately emerges as the Tybalt of the evening via past newspaper clippings (one by none other than the great Ninette de Valois) bemoaning its refusal to reach into its pockets.

At any rate, the programme’s title is doubly relevant. Not only is this a rebirth (thanks to the tireless efforts of former dancer Christopher Marney, now the company’s boss); the company’s mission statement, now as then, is to tour with works from the past that have unjustly fallen through the cracks, as well as acting as a crucible for young talent.

The undisputed highlight of the evening – which necessarily plays out entirely to pre-recorded music – fits perfectly into the former bracket. Kenneth MacMillan’s 1972 work Ballade is a four-hander for one girl and three boys that was inspired by the blind date at a cinema at which the great choreographer met his wife-to-be, Deborah. It was performed just once, in Portugal, by the Ballet Group (the bowdlerised iteration of the Royal Ballet’s Touring Company that would eventually re-grow into Birmingham Royal Ballet); as an illustration of just how “lost” it was until now, my late father, writing for the Guardian and quoted in the new programme notes, reviewed that first performance; 52 years later, here I am reviewing the second.

He described this burnished, innovative nugget of neo-classicism, set to perfectly chosen Fauré, as “a fluent, gently emotional and uninterrupted kaleidoscope of dance”, and I cannot disagree. As it opens, the quartet are seated, their backs to us, watching a black-and-white film, but they soon shift to sitting around a table. Soon, as they start to rise and dance in various permutations, the central relationship (here, between the magically evergreen Alina Cojocaru and her assiduous partner Alejandro Virelles) begins to blossom, generating a fascinatingly mixed tapestry of emotions from the other two. Remarkably undated in every respect, this little Rubik’s Cube of human interactions reminds you just how engrossing 15-odd minutes of almost narrative-free ballet can be.

Another highlight of the evening is the central, shimmering andante from another MacMillan piece, his 1966 abstract masterpiece Concerto, set to Shostakovich. Convincingly delivered by Isadora Bless and Joseph Taylor, it’s nevertheless neither new nor even remotely neglected (it’s a Royal Ballet and BRB staple, after all), and so sits slightly oddly in the evening’s mix.

London City Ballet in Kenneth MacMillan's Ballade
London City Ballet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Ballade - ASH

For the rest, the opener, Ashley Page’s 30-year-old Larina Waltz is a traditional-feeling response to Tchaikovsky’s famous waltz from Eugene Onegin that sets five couples in an attractive near-perpetual motion. Five Dances, by young Arielle Smith (the co-architect of English National Ballet’s forthcoming Nutcracker) is – as its John Adams score invites – a more contemporary workout in five parts; undeniably lively, it strikes me as the work of a very capable choreographer who knows her craft but hasn’t yet quite found a “voice”.

The evening closes a 2022 piece by Marney himself, Eve. Much as it pains me to criticise him on this of all evenings, this Garden of Eden fantasia (complete with special effects strikingly reminiscent of Chris Cunningham’s 1998 video for Madonna’s song Frozen) feels fatally overwrought, especially so coming after the lean luminosity of Concerto. Still, it does encourage a sensuous performance from Ballet Black’s marvellous Cira Robinson, as well as injecting a note of variety in a bill that otherwise has a curiously uniform feel to it.

So, a warm welcome back to LCB, and more power to them in their bid to take this sort of work to corners of the country (and indeed world) perhaps more used to being force-fed Swan Lakes and Nutcrackers. But they’ll need to keep pushing very hard indeed to carve out a space for themselves: competition is fierce, the public not always as receptive to novelty as one might like. And as for the Arts Council, this time round? Well, I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.


Until Sept 14, then touring to New York; londoncityballet.com