The programme opens with Polyphonia, created in 2001, but still astonishing in its logic and integrity. Even though Wheeldon has taken the ballet's structure from the accompanying Ligeti piano music, the mission to strip out all choreographic fat and cliche from the material is his own. Each image resonates with a blinding clarity, especially the duets for the central couple: dark, gluey, needy encounters in which Wheeldon reinvents the conventions of partnering, the ballerina ducking and butting deep in the embrace of her partner, or sleepwalking in the air around him.
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