The Stage

Carlos Acosta Premieres

Published Friday 30 July 2010 at 13:13 by Liz Arratoon

You hear the name Carlos Acosta and expect something special. So quite why the packed house is so enraptured by this distinctly patchy programme is anyone’s guess.

Carlos Acosta in The Emotional Architecture from Premieres at the London Coliseum Photo: Tristram Kenton

After a sell-out season here last summer, Acosta returns with a collection of new or revisited contemporary dance pieces, joined by Zenaida Yanowsky. His aim is to explore different territory and, indeed, there is some notable digital technology that creates interactive 3D scenery.

The highlight is clearly Russell Maliphant’s electrifying Two, which is performed in a small box of light. Having said that though, it was created on the steely sylph Sylvie Guillem, and does not suit Acosta’s bulky musculature half as well. Any delicacy is stripped away and the moves become martial art rather than dance.

Yanowsky shows off what her elegant limbs can do in Footnote to Ashton, choreographed by Kim Brandstrup. In an area cornered by banks of lighted candles, she flows about in a black gauze dress as easily as water - which is also one of the night’s recurring themes.

Edwaard Liang’s Sight Unseen provides their most successful pairing. Dressed in pure white and at first divided by a strip of light, they eventually come together for a touching duet - set to the Tsinandali Choir’s chanting - made up of a sequence of dainty and controlled lifts.

The remaining pieces invariably comprise awkward and tortured moves that do not hold the attention. They are as much about theatre as dance and when the Pegasus Choir’s live onstage singing eclipses the dancing, something must be amiss.