Modanse/Svetlana Zakharova review: Surface gloss obscures fashion icon’s dark side

This year, London has been hit by a wave of self-curated shows put together by ballet’s biggest names, most notably the offerings of Sergei Polunin, always manfully up for pushing the bar particularly low.

And now to end 2019 comes Modanse, the slickest, most stylish programme to date, danced by the formidable prima Svetlana Zakharova and supported by her fellow Bolshoi stars. As a display of exceptional technique and sheer Russian glamour it’s hard to beat — what’s up for question is the quality of the work itself.

The evening’s headline-grabber is Gabrielle Chanel by choreographer Yuri Possokhov, an hour-long dive through the life and loves of the French designer and visionary. Well, not her entire life naturally (Chanel’s darker side as a Nazi collaborator and apparent penchant for cocaine parties don’t get a look in) but the kind of sanitised biopic you might find buried on the Hallmark Channel.

This is dance as a marketing campaign: gorgeous to look at, emotionally vapid. There’s much surface gloss, notably in the parade of Chanel staples – the little black dresses and tweed suits, red lipstick, Breton stripes and pearls, all made for the stage by the design house itself – but nothing for the audience to actually get behind. Zakharova poses and preens with alacrity, playing with steely balances and those extraordinary extensions, but even the ballet’s heart — a duet with Jacopo Tissi as the English polo player Arthur Capel, Chanel’s great love — fails to pack a punch.

Around them, the supporting cast step up variously as seamstresses, couture customers and dancers from the Ballets Russes, which Chanel famously designed for, but the result is distinctly underwhelming.

Completing the double bill is Mauro Bigonzetti’s Come un Respiro (Like a Breath), a curiously muted display of pyrotechnics, dressed in Helena de Medeiros’s sculptural “tutus” and distressed jeans, and danced under moody spotlights to taped Handel.

Until tonight, London Coliseum (020 7845 9300, londoncoliseum.org)