Into the Music, Birmingham Royal Ballet
Sadler's Wells Theatre | ★★★✩✩

The Birmingham Royal Ballet is back at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London for a short run of a new triple bill, entitled Into the Music. It is a curious mix of contemporary dance, classical brilliance…and something very strange indeed.

The performance opens with Jiří Kylián’s powerful Forgotten Land, first performed in 1981 and set to Benjamin Britten’s sombre Sinfonia da Requiem. I am not a fan of Britten – I cannot warm to the music – but Kylian’s choreography is powerful and beautiful. Lifts are impressive and the small group of 12 dancers perform with conviction.

The next work must be one of the weirdest and most original ballets I have ever seen. Morgann Runacre-Temple has created Hotel, a surreal journey into the world behind the closed doors of hotel rooms.

Birmingham Royal Ballet The Seventh Symphony Choreography and Design Uwe Scholz Photo Credit Johan Persson.jpg

'It is a curious mix of contemporary dance, classical brilliance…and something very strange indeed' (Photo: Johan Persson)

Working with film-maker Jessica Wright, Runacre-Temple shows us a hotel which is distinctly creepy; the use of hand-held cameras allows us to see into the rooms and view large projections on the scenery of what is going on. The effect is intimate, intriguing and ultimately rather sinister. I will not spoil the ending for you – let’s just say that, like the Bates Motel, you would not want to be checking into this particular establishment any time soon.

The audience loved it and Hotel is a brave and unusual work acquisition for the company.

The evening closed with The Seventh Symphony, Uwe Scholz’s ballet set to Beethoven’s famous symphony. Scholz has taken the classical vocabulary and added his own twist to many of the movements: dancers are dragged along the floor in splits, lifted high in beautiful arabesques and cross the stage in exceptionally speedy steps.

Yijing Zhang, Céline Gittens, Miki Mizutani Birmingham Royal Ballet Forgotten Land Choreography Jiří Kylián, Costume and Set Design John Macfarlane Photo credit Johan Persson .jpg

Yijing Zhang, Céline Gittens and Miki Mizutani in the Birmingham Royal Ballet (Photo: Johan Persson)

The large cast tackles the challenging choreography with aplomb, and it is a joyous work on which to finish, but the piece, though inventive, includes large sections which are repetitive and by the end of the ballet I was more than ready for curtain down.

Birmingham Royal Ballet is at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, London EC1 until 5 November