These three one-act ballets - Powder, E=mc² and The Centre and its Opposite - represent some of the most extreme work Birmingham Royal Ballet has undertaken to date.
The evening rocks, it screams and at one point gives us an atomic explosion.
With the cool classicism of Stanton Welch’s Powder kicking off this extraordinary performance, David Bintley’s talented company proves it can take on anything going and carry it off successfully.
Powder is very fine. Particularly impressive are Kandis Cook’s sets which suggest the classical architecture of Parigi or Piranesi.
In the shadows the dancers move like ghosts then emerge for some sharp partnerings which leave you feeling that Welch has reduced a classical period, perhaps the 17th century, to its bare bones, showing us what lies beneath layers of ceremony and style. Here is a ballet which will repay further visits.
The same can be said of Bintley’s remarkable and dazzlingly clever E=mc², for which you don’t require a degree in advanced physics.
In feverish groups, fingers stroking the air like moving fern fronds, the dancers come and go through a quartet of intensely-shaped sequences which explore the dynamism of the creative energy, which leads on to the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
As the black up-stage screens open slowly to reveal a scarlet rectangle, a solitary Japanese woman moves her paper fan in traditional style as the soundscape changes to a huge rumbling. The world crumbles insanely and the woman, symbolising human frailty, goes with it.
This is a dance masterpiece, pushed beyond conventional limits, overwhelming and marvellously exciting with some great dancing, as ultimate power is negotiated and explored in settings where the lighting (by Peter Mumford and Michael Mannion) is as stunning as an art installation.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
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