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In the Spirit of Diaghilev

Published Thursday 15 October 2009 at 14:05 by Gavin Roebuck

Wayne McGregor’s Dyad 1909 is collaboration with composer Olafur Arnalds, costume designer Moritz Junge and excellent lighting by Lucy Carter. Geometric installations have various images projected on them, taking away attention from the seven good dancers. Disappointingly, his choreography now seems to have nothing new to say, just more of the same with moments when all the dancers are doing something different at the same time in a cacophony of movement.

James O’Hara, and Daisy Phillips are fine dancers. The animalistic nature of human movement and the power of mythology was shown by them in Faun, a superb duet by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui to music by Nitin Sawhney, with elements of the original Debussy score. After Light by Russell Maliphant seems inspired by Nijinsky. Using geometric forms and circular design under dappled lighting by Michael Hulls, to music by Andy Cowton, Daniel Proietto turns in an almost hypnotic state.

Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, by Javier De Frutos to Ravel’s La Valse, is an attack on the Roman Catholic church, with a hunchback Pope who attacks and abuses his altar boy and a pregnant woman - a tedious attempt to create a scandal.

Diaghilev brought together great artists whose works have lasted. No sign of that here though - without the pretentiousness of the title, it is a reasonable show of contemporary choreography with good dancers. Judge it for yourself, as it will be a December treat on BBC 4.

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