What happens when you bring together two extraordinary bodies? Exhibit A: Wendy Whelan, 48, a dancer with the New York City Ballet for 30 years and a ballerina of striking poise and sharp angles. Exhibit B: Edward Watson, 38, one of the Royal Ballet’s most physically mercurial dancers. Both are performers whose creative minds are as flexible as their physiques, so it’s a juicy prospect.
The pair have commissioned five pieces from an eclectic group of choreographers and the highlight has to be Arthur Pita’s Ballad Of Mack And Ginny, inspired by Brecht and Weill’s Threepenny Opera. Watson and Whelan engage in a cold tango — a dance of transaction rather than passion — and play out their power struggles. He strips her semi-naked then offers the protection of his body as long as she remains adhered to him, like some pimp or pusher. But the tables are turned when knives are drawn.
Pita’s piece is the longest and most developed. Elsewhere we get a selection of short dance nuggets, some chewier than others. There’s Javier De Frutos’s First And Wait, a low-key opener that plays with boredom, annoyance and attention-seeking. Arlene Phillips offers Dance Me To The End Of Time, a solo that sees dance as an obsessive compulsion, with Watson reeling through styles and songs. There are the hop-skippety sketches of US choreographer Annie-B Parson, in an intriguing solo for Whelan, and a duet, The Song We Share, from Canadian Danièle Desnoyers, in which a couple circle each other, lifting and twisting, but never quite meet face to face.
All five are deftly fused into a whole with clever staging and segues, not least designer Jean-Marc Puissant’s wooden walls, which slide to reveal a band of live musicians in changing permutations. Perhaps unexpectedly, this is not really a performance about technical display but about the possibilities that lie between two people. It’s an experiment and, by the close of this short show, it feels more like the beginning of a journey than the end.
Until July 12 (020 7304 4000/roh.org.uk)
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