Last Updated on July 2, 2026
ENB School/John Cranko School – Two Schools, One Mission
Collaborations often work by throwing up the unexpected. We saw an example of great cross-fertilisation in the previous Next Generation 2026 programme, when ZooNation Youth Company joined forces with dancers from Memphis, USA, and Memphis Jookin’ pioneer Lil Buck to reimagine history through the lens of hip hop in the pulsating, highly emotional piece 1776.
Next Generation Festival followed that with a different kind of collaboration: a partnership programme by two prominent ballet institutions, London’s English National Ballet School and the Stuttgart-based John Cranko Schule.
Made up of seven pieces that ran the gamut from impeccably neo-classical to contemporary, fast-moving, nervy expressionism, the programme proved tremendously enjoyable, and on the whole highlighted the strengths of each school. Founded in 1988, ENB is a finishing school with a three-year graduation programme, after which the best have a chance of joining ENB. The John Cranko Schule was founded in 1971 by one of the defining personalities of ballet in Germany to train young dancers in close contact with the company Cranko himself had founded ten years earlier, the Stuttgart Ballet. Today Stuttgart Ballet is central to ballet in Germany, and the school is one of the most renowned ballet schools in the world.
Its excellence became immediately apparent when the first dancer walked on stage – you can tell a lot about technique and schooling simply by the way a dancer walks. His poise and elegance were remarkable. He was one of the male cast of Variations for Four, a piece created in 1957 by Anton Dolin, one of the founders of what was to become English National Ballet, to show off the art of the male dancer. To music by Marguerite Keogh, the dancers performed a series of variations of increasing difficulty, either in individual solos or together. Their technical assurance was remarkable. I particularly liked their soaring elevation followed by the softest of landings, and their clear awareness that they weren’t just dancing – they were performing for an audience.
Variations for Four was set against Pas de Quatre, also choreographed by Anton Dolin from the original mid-19th century Romantic ballet, which was created to showcase the specific talents of four of the great ballerinas of the time: Lucile Grahn, Carlotta Grisi, Fanny Cerrito, and Marie Taglioni. Set to music by Cesare Pugni, this piece, performed by ENBS, is very difficult – it requires an uber-Romantic style, all poise and demure lightness, with elbows out and very soft wrists for the delicate port de bras. I felt it was a very big ask of such young dancers, and occasionally it came across as simply mannered, rather than period.
The programme ended with Marco Goecke’s rousing All Long Dem Day set to Nina Simone’s goosebumps-raising Sinnerman. A very fast moving piece, using expressionist gestures of crisped hands, angular arm movements, shaking heads, and frenzied, yet controlled, runs, it explored inner guilt and humanity’s search for redemption. Performed with tremendous power by a mixed 11-strong cast from John Cranko Schule, it elicited a prolonged standing ovation, and rightly so.
John Cranko Schule also performed two small-scale pieces, both solos for women: Xenia Wiest’s At Last, danced by Wiktoria Kielbasinska in eye-catching elbow-length red gloves to one of Etta James’s most iconic songs; and Jordan Pellitari’s When Light and Dark Meet, depicting contrasting emotions and expressively performed by Macie Miersch.
ENBS students showed their mettle in two very pleasing classical pieces: Winter, set to Vivaldi and especially choreographed by Demis Volpi, and Fleeting by Bridget Breiner, set to the resonant bass of the Russian Boris Shtokolov singing Anton Rubinstein’s musical setting of a poem by Mirza Shari. All three young women offered cogent interpretations.
Winter was danced by three couples in snowy white unitards, and showed off the young dancers’ mastery of pair work, with difficult, intricate lifts, all of which came off assuredly.
So, as Next Generation Festival 2026 draws to an end, it leaves strong memories and, with so much talent on display, a lot of optimism as to the future of the art form. I am already looking forward to Next Generation 2027…
ENB School/John Cranko School is at the Linbury on 30 June & 1 July at 7.15 pm
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes, including one interval. Tickets: £5 – £23
Linbury
RBO
Bow Street
London WC2E 9DD
Check our previews for more Dance in London
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