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Reader rating
Dir: Edouard Lock.
Cast: La La La Human Steps
Description: A new work from chroeographer Edouard Lock, drawing upon classical works Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty, to create a fast-paced physical show incorporating classical techniques, live music and projected film montage.
Trains: Tube: Angel 
Phone: 0844412 4300
Website: www.sadlerswells.com
Spin-meister: choreographer Edouard Lock has his dancers turning like tops in too-brief leotards
Edouard Lock caused quite a stir when his troupe last visited London back in 2000. The Canadian choreographer specialises in what you might call drastic classicism - the balletic equivalent of thrash metal, if you like.
Out went the dainty ballerina, and in came the black- clad, mussed-hair, pointe-shoe wearing vixen. Faster and faster she moved, pushing herself, and us, to some new, unknown limit. It felt rather thrilling, a kind of blindingly fast dance noire whose inky chic had considerable allure.
Eight years on and I have to confess I can't see what the fuss was about. Lock's choreographic range now looks limited. He is a spin-meister extraordinaire, that is true, with his dancers turning like tops, first one way, then reversing it in one-toed multiples so speedy your eyes go fuzzy. There are also striking arabesques that seem to stretch the dancer both forward and back, and they zip around the stage and wave their arms in occasionally interesting ways.
Teenagers and gym bunnies will thrill to the energy, but even they will weary of the same idea repeated over and over for an hour and three-quarters, which is the length of Lock's new work, Amjad.
It is based on the music and thematic legacy of those two Tchaikovsky biggies, Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. Lock says some interesting things about them in the programme, about their being part of our collective cultural memory, and how both ballets have forest scenes (the forest being the realm of the unchained unconscious).
However, little of this is converted into choreographic meaning. All you get is frantic dancing by five women in too-brief black leotards. The three men, who dance briefly on pointe, are under-used. The set and lighting is Docklands bleak. The one good thing is the music, a dissonant gypsy-inflected take by Gavin Bryars on the Tchaikovsky originals. Bryars humorously shifts the emphasis back and forth between melody and rhythm, and you wish that Lock could choreograph with equal ingenuity.
Top marks to musical director and pianist Njo Kong Kie and his gutsy trio of string players.
• Until Saturday. Information 0844 412 4300. www.sadlerswells.com.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
