Festival Ballet - A Million Kisses to My Skin/Resolution/Etudes

Published Friday 4 July 2008 at 13:35 by Lyndsey Winship

Half a century ago, the Festival Ballet - as English National Ballet was then known - premiered Harald’s Lander’s Etudes on the stage of the Royal Festival Hall. Seven hundred and forty-odd performances later and Etudes is back on that same stage.

The classic piece is a souped-up version of a ballet class, so simple, but still gripping with its gathering momentum from basic barre work to almighty grand allegro, plus some very big dancing from guest principal Zdenek Konvalina.

Next to this old favourite is something brand new, the first piece created for the company by director Wayne Eagling. Resolution is set to Mahler and inspired by Eagling’s work with a muscular dystrophy charity. It’s a piece of two halves, two separate works almost, and it’s the latter half that’s worth seeing. A male trio with one dancer at the centre, weakened and ailing - whether spiritually or physically we don’t know - being carried, manipulated and supported by the others in a display of quiet strength, suffering and compassion.

However, it is neither of these pieces that is the highlight, but David Dawson’s A Million Kisses to my Skin, which pushes the company up a gear and proves them masters of the modern. Dawson’s style here is stark, clean but distinctive, as dancers whip across the stage with arched backs and arms flung high. There’s a masterful duet from Agnes Oaks and Thomas Edur (although Edur doesn’t look as commanding as usual) and a showcase for young talent such as Laura Bruna, really getting to grips with this extreme movement.

But best of all is Erina Takahashi. At one point she virtually jumps on to pointe in a frozen-still arabesque and just stays there, limbs splayed, watching the audience with a little glint in her eye. Brilliant.