Last Updated on November 2, 2025
A serene, sensitive and spirited evening of contemporary ballet
The Opening Night of Encounters was a fabulous evening that presented the dancers of each ballet at their very best. The programme consisted of four contemporary ballets by 21st-century choreographers, including two world premieres: Or Forevermore by Pam Tanowitz and Dusk by Joseph Toonga, and two revivals of previous works: The Weathering by Kyle Abraham and The Statement by Crystal Pite.
The Weathering was the opener of the evening; this premiered in 2022 and is Abraham’s second work for The Royal Ballet (the first being Optional Family, a divertissement, part of the 21st Century Choreographers programme in 2021). He is an American dancer and choreographer (born 1977 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), who blends classical with contemporary and street dance. He formed his own company, AIM in 2006, has received many dance awards and has created many works for various American companies, and two for The Royal Ballet. He has choreographed for Beyoncé (2013 British Vogue cover shoot), and for Misty Copeland (Ash in 2019), and The Runaway for New York City Ballet at the 2018 Fall Fashion Gala.
The Weathering is about relationships, love and loss – lives interrupted – and draws on Kyle Abraham’s own experience, especially the loss of family members and friends. Abraham worked with the composer Ryan Lott (who wrote the music for the film ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’), knowing that he would be able to convey ‘a sense of life and vitality and a sense of loss’; he wrote the music in nine sections of differing speeds and moods, at times slow and serene, or wistful, or fast and vibrant. The scene is set on a plain dark stage, softly lit by paper lanterns of differing sizes, which could be raised up or down; the number of them increasing or decreasing, seeming to represent lives given and taken away. (Dan Scully – Lighting Designer).
The cast consisted of eleven dancers, nine men and two women, with simple romantic costumes of soft silky shirts and trousers for men and chiffony dresses for the women, in pale pinks, yellows and dusty rose (Karen Young – Costume Designer). The dancers appeared on stage in different groupings, including ensembles of seven men, or two duets, one of Liam Boswell and Joshua Junker and the other of Melissa Hamilton and Lukas B.Brӕndsrǿd, or solos. The dancing was elegant throughout, the dancers sublime in the duets and solos and virtuosic in the jumps, turns and extensions. The duet of Joshua Junker and Liam Boswell was touching and tender and that of Melissa Hamilton and Lukas B.Brӕndsrǿd, blissful. Sae Maeda was wonderful in her solo, spinning across the stage with her piquẻ turns. Joshua Junker had a profound and emotional solo at the end when he is left all alone, his friends all having disappeared. The other dancers were Brayden Gallucci, Daichi Ikarashi, Harrison Lee, Aiden O’Brien, Francisco Serrano and Harry Churches. The musicians were excellent, with one small orchestra in the pit (flute, clarinet, horn, trumpet, violin, viola, cello) and a second orchestra offstage.
Next on the programme was Or Forevermore by Pam Tanowitz, and it is a development of her work for The Royal Ballet, Dispatch Duet, which she choreographed in 2022 as a pas de deux for Anna Rose O’Sullivan and William Bracewell and was part of The Diamond Celebration. This time she choreographed the work for a larger group of dancers and left the pas de deux for the end. Tanowitz (born 1969 in New York) is an American dancer and choreographer and founder of the company, Pam Tanowitz Dance. She choreographs for leading ballet companies, such as The Martha Graham Dance Company and the New York City Ballet. She created Everyone Keeps Me in 2019 for The Royal Ballet.
Or Forevermore was playful ballet with excellent performances from all the fourteen dancers, who looked as if they were having a lot of fun and danced to an incredible clashy score by Ted Hearne. The ballet’s humour was delivered in a deadpan style. Anna Rose O’Sullivan opens the dance in a red and gold velour tracksuit, parting the stage curtains to reveal a dark stage with spotlight stands, and she dances as if rehearsing for a show. She is joined by Bracewell for a quirky physical comedy sequence, upending traditional ballet poses for more lilting and unpredictable partner work: Anna Rose slowly falls in her arabesque into Bracewell’s arms as he kneels, she takes turns pushing and supporting him as he dances, and later they indulge in breaking the fourth wall as they sit either side stage front, watching the audience and other dancers as they come in. The other dancers dress in two-tone leotards; purple and pink, orange and green, dark green and yellow. O’Sullivan and Bracewell reappear in shorts and t-shirts for some impressive ensemble work. The women’s ‘little swans dance’ was particularly amusing, with pas de chats and surprising one-arm waving motion (Viola Pantuso, Hanna Park, Maddison Pritchard and Ginevra Zambon). There was exquisite dancing from all the dancers – strong leaps, turns, travelling on point and other types of intricate choreography – and there was also an athletic run around the stage from one dancer, which came across as so unusual in a ballet performance that it was oddly delightful.
O’Sullivan’s and Bracewell’s pas de deux at the end was stunning; they were charming, playful and polished. The other dancers were Scarlett Harvey, Isabel Lubach, Luca Acri, Denilson Almeida, Joonhyuk Jun, Caspar Lench, Taisuke Nakao and Aiden O’Brien. The music by the American composer Ted Hearne is vibrant, rhythmic and dynamic, with Stevie Wonder vocals at times and bells; Hearne composed the score, Dispatches, in 2014 with large orchestra and it has amazing unique sounds, illustrating the competing sounds in the outside world. Witty and experimental, Tanowitz delivers an exciting spectacle which produced a real atmosphere of joy.
Dusk by Joseph Toonga was the third ballet of the evening and the second premiere of the night. Toonga’s inspiration for the work was to consider ‘moving forward’, when we are still affected by what we have experienced in the past and are trying to move beyond it; it is personal and introspective in its exploration of the connections between people. Toonga, born in Cameroon, took to dance as a teenager in Newham, London and set up Just Us Dance Theatre in 2007 to explore the blending of different dance styles, including urban, classical, contemporary and hip hop. He is now enjoying a Choreographic Residency at The Royal Ballet. His first work for The Royal Ballet was See Us! from 2022.
The ballet has only seven dancers, five of them women: Marianna Tsembenhoi, Nadia Mullova-Barley, Charlotte Tomkinson, Olivia Findlay and Rebecca Myles Stewart, and two men: Benjamin Ella and Francisco Serrano, and it is set to music by Marina Moore. The stage is dark except for a large rectangular frame of light that is suspended over them (Simon Bennison, Lighting Designer for Dusk and Or Forevermore). The music is by Marina Moore with orchestration by Peter Riley; there are rich sounds of a cello, birds, bells and cityscapes. The dancers, dressed in blue outfits, danced strongly in this mix of classical and hip-hop, with extensions and chest isolations and back stretches, and Marianna Tsembenhoi delivers an especially memorable turn, spinning alone across the stage. It ended with a solitary dancer inside the lowered light frame. There was obvious joy and commitment from the dancers in this ballet.
The final ballet was The Statement by Crystal Pite which was first performed by The Royal Ballet in 2021 and was originally created for Nederlands Dans Theater in 2016. It is a very dynamic and thought-provoking piece, combining spoken word and contemporary dance. The actor and writer Jonathon Young wrote the script and recorded it with other voice actors, enhancing it with distortions and repetitions (with additional music by Owen Belton), and it makes for a dramatic dance accompaniment. The dancers respond to the text totally with their bodies, in beautiful synchronicity with the text and occasionally free in movement, without text.
The action takes place in a boardroom setting, dark with a long table, with four characters who are from a government department or a world-wide company, that has been involved in a disastrous conflict in another country. Four characters are racked with guilt at what has happened and their culpability. The ballet starts with two of them panicking, Joseph Sissens and Ashley Dean, (dressed in white shirts and black trousers), as they consider their responsibility for the situation and what they should do about it. Calvin Richardson (dressed all in black) is ‘the guy from upstairs’ who comes downstairs to get ‘the statement’, and Kristen McNally (in blue shirt and black trousers) is his assistant. The stark visuals are powerful, and the dancers are terrific in their roles, showing their confusion and desire to deflect the blame. We can see and feel all their struggles with their conscience, and their inner turmoil. The Set Designer was Jay Gower Taylor; the Lighting Designer, Tom Visser; and the Costumes, Crystal Pite and Joke Visser. This ominous piece projects a timeless inquisition of interferences with justice and covering the truth. There is impeccable precision and speed with which the dancers move through starkly beautiful tableaus, showcasing Pite’s painterly mastery of her choreography.
Crystal Pite is a Canadian dancer and choreographer, a multi-award winner and an Associate Artist at Sadler’s Wells. She has created over sixty works for ballet companies including The Royal Ballet, the Nederlands Dans Theatre, The Paris Opera Theatre and The National Ballet of Canada. She created the very popular ballet Flight Pattern in 2017 and Light of Passage in 2022 for The Royal Ballet. She founded Kidd Pivot in 2002 to showcase her own works and likes to consider difficult issues such as trauma, addiction, conflict, consciousness and mortality.
This four-ballet contemporary programme is highly recommended. It was stimulating and beautiful and all the dancers were on fine form, obviously taking great pleasure in their performances.
The Encounters: Four Contemporary Ballets programme will run from Tuesday 22 October until Saturday 16 November.
Royal Ballet and Opera
Bow St
London
WC2E 9DD
Leave a Reply