Hospices of Hope Gala

Published Thursday 8 May 2008 at 13:00 by Gavin Roebuck

Romanian ballerina Alina Cojocaru is joined by her partner fellow Royal Ballet principal dancer, Johan Kobborg in this charity gala for Hospices of Hope which cares for the sick in Romania. The programme opened with them dancing Jerome Robbins’ Other Dances. Their warm, engaging, lyrical movements were a delightful start to the show, with Robert Clark playing the Chopin piano music with a sympathetic eye on the dancers. The cheery showpiece pas de deux Flames of Paris, with its high leaps and spinning turns, was performed with elan by the effervescent Yuhui Choe and from the Berlin State Ballet, Marian Walter.

Tim Rushton’s choreography to Debussy’s L’apres-midi d’un faune is a delicate solo that needs a great dancer to perform it and Kobborg had the elegance and acting ability to make this a memorable performance. Cojocaru is such a beautiful dancer - she can make any work look interesting. Bird as Prophet to Schumann, played with a romantic emphasis on the piano by Kate Shipway, looked as thought it was choreographed in a few minutes for her by Kim Brandstrup rather than a carefully crafted piece. Roberta Marquez with Daniel Ulbricht were charming in an excerpt from Coppelia. The show ended with Royal Ballet members Emma-Jane Maguire, Romany Pajdak and Sergei Polunin joining the other dancers in a high-spirited divertissement from Don Quixote.

The small orchestra, the Manning Camerata, was upstage conducted by Daniel Capps with his back to the dancers, which at times didn’t entirely help give a perfect tempi for the terrific dancers.