There was something soothing, elegant and cathartic in Viktor Erik Emanuel’s rendering of Debussy’s Clair De Lune – the musical openings in the Ballet Nights series are almost always impressive, but quite a few have been a flurry of frenetic activity, as if the programme was in a hurry to get through the music solo to get to the dance numbers. The second half opener was a good example of this, but at least Dominic Stokes wasn’t furiously playing the viola for very long. Ballet Nights’ tenth London programme (they have, having only started less than three years ago, gone as far out as Brisbane) had a palpably joyous feel to it.
In what was not an evening for ballet purists, despite the inclusion of works by certain choreographers who built their careers on maintaining certain standards, playfulness seemed to be in full swing. Perhaps the largest group of dancers Ballet Nights has had to date was made up of students from the Central School of Ballet, suitably dressed for an extract from On The Town, set in New York in the 1940s. The evening’s compère, Jamiel Devernay-Laurence, had trained at Central himself, giving their performance personal significance. A ballet school training goes some way to explaining Devernay-Laurence’s total inability to keep still while talking, pacing the Cadogan Hall stage as though incentivised in some way to do ten thousand steps a day.
Near relentless joy expressed itself in various ways. One of the beautiful things about Ballet Nights is that it is still intimate enough to see dancers’ facial expressions – the waltz danced by Sae Maeda and Harris Bell succeeded in exuding happiness not only in making their performance look effortless but by a radiation of bliss that maybe, just maybe, had something to do with the dynamic duo getting married in April 2025. Matthew Ball, a principal of the Royal Ballet, had fun faffing about with an absurdly long rod – at one point, he seemed to be attempting to pole-vault with it.
The aptly-named ‘Out of Breath’ had a rather intense fluidity, seeking to capture the complexity of life in the modern world, with competing demands on people’s time. I was pleased to see a return of ‘324a’ to Ballet Nights, performed and choreographed by Joshua Junker, which took its title from the house number where Junker lived during lockdown, perhaps surprisingly oozing with positivity in its portrayal of a time when dancers weren’t performing to audiences.
As ever with shows with plenty of variety, if you don’t particularly care for something, just hang in there. Something markedly different will come along in due course. Anything I didn’t enjoy here was, I think, mostly, if not entirel,y down to personal preference. Proceedings closed out with a long (well, ‘long’ by the rest of the evening’s standards) section from Diana & Acteon, which I would imagine dance aficionados will have seen many times before. The Mexico-based Ballet de Monterrey impressed the audience, some of whom took to applauding mid-performance, like the television audiences on those Saturday night glorified karaoke shows (do they still have those?).
A few too many errors (including a quite amusing one right at the end), alas, prevent me from awarding full marks, even if it is better to have an imperfect show with heart than a technically perfect one that leaves the audience feeling cold. A highly enjoyable and innovative night out.
Review by Chris Omaweng
Ballet Nights, the critically-acclaimed, hugely popular programme of classical ballet, contemporary dance and live music, presented its tenth London programme with the aptly titled DECADANCE at Cadogan Hall, headlined by Royal Ballet Principal, Matthew Ball, who will perform his outstanding self-choreographed solo, The Measure of Things.
PART I
Clair De Lune
Performed by Viktor Erik Emanuel
Composer Debussy
Moszkowski Waltz
Performed by Sae Maeda & Harris Bell
Choreographed by Vasily Vainonen
With thanks to Royal Ballet & Opera
Out Of Breath
Performed by Alessandra Bramante & Joseph Taylor
Choreographed by George Liang
Composer Olafur Arnalds
With thanks to Northern Ballet
AE
Performed by Isabelle Evans & Travis Clausen-Knight
Choreographed by Pett Clausen-Knight
Composer Sean Pett
Designed by Pett Clausen-Knight
Times Square Ballet
Excerpt from On the Town
Performed by Central School of Ballet
Choreographed by Ashley Page
Composer Leonard Bernstein
Costume design by Antony McDonald with Ilona Karas
Costume curation by Chloe Ivey-Ray
With Thanks to Central School of Ballet
Dov’è la Luna
Performed by Lou Beyne & Jaat Benoot
Choreographed by Jean Christophe Maillot
Composer Alexandre Scriabine
Costumes by Jérôme Kaplan
With thanks to Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo
PART II
Viola Sonata, Op. 25, No. 1 Rasendes Zeitmass. Wild. Tonschonheir ist Nebensache
Viola Dominic Stokes
Composer Paul Hindemith
Lacrymosa
Performed by Amy Thake and Edd Mitton
Choreographed by Sir Robert Cohan
Composer Dimitri Yanov-Yanovsky
With thanks to Yorke Dance Project
324a
Performed by Joshua Junker
Choreographed by Joshua Junker
Composer J.S. Bach
Piano Viktor Erik Emanuel
With thanks to Royal Ballet & Opera
Atlas
New Rambert PLATFORM Creation
Choreographed and performed by Chrysanthi Nikolaou & Django Bates-Blower
Music by Ori Lichtik
With thanks to Rambert School
The Measure of Things
Choreographed and performed by Matthew Ball
Piano Viktor Erik Emanuel
Music Beethoven’s Piano Sonata 31
With thanks to Royal Ballet & Opera
Diana & Acteon Pas De Deux
Performed by Laura Rodriguez and Gael Ventura
Choreographed by Agrippina Vaganova after Marius Petipa
Composer Riccardo Drigo
With thanks to Ballet De Monterrey
BALLET NIGHTS 010 – DECADANCE
Cadogan Hall
4 February 2026
