Review: SO ARE WE: LEÓN AND LIGHTFOOT, Royal Ballet And Opera

Having your work performed by the Royal Ballet is going to be a big deal at any point - so imagine waiting some 37 years…enter the room Paul Lightfoot and Sol León.

Lightfoot and León are dancers turned choreographers who had the majority of their careers at Nederlands Dans Theater. They first choreographed for the troupe in 1989 and have been a very successful creative team since, creating and staging works all over the world, and now at Covent Garden.

The house was busy last night for their double bill premiere; So Are We, and the performance began with the 2006 work Shoot the Moon. A piece for five dancers to Philip Glass (Tirol Concerto), the work looks at relationships. The most impressive aspect is the set. Designed by Lightfoot and Leon, a three room structure rotates to show different scenes/moods and a large screen floats above where live captures of the action are streamed.

The whole work is cinematic in look and atmosphere, and can only be described as stylish. Yet personally I didn't find it emotionally engaging. There's something detached about their work - as if the characters are hollow; they stare relentlessly out to the audience as they move or execute exaggerated facial expressions, and this format tends to leave me cold.

Some of the pas de deux have connected moments and the screen work is definitely impactful, but I can't say I was deeply moved. The cast are 100 percent committed, and this undoubtedly supports the work's artistic underpinning.

The second work, Salle de danse is a world premiere and features 45 members of the company. It's original guise was a dance film created for Nederlands Dans Theater during the pandemic, but now the duo bring it to life for the Royal Ballet in London.

The basic premise is the daily ballet class, and the work is an episodic experience of vignettes with titles like ‘Tendus, Glissés, Frappés, Grands battements’. Francesca Hayward and Marcelino Sambé frame the work, and within we see solos to group numbers beavering away to Ilya Demutsky's commissioned score.

A lot of the movement feels disconnected from the music, as in it doesn't actively use the rhythmical structure or suit the style of composition. Towards the end of the work this changes when we enter interludes with national/folk dance emphases (‘Tarentelle’, ‘Mazurka’) and this I find much more satisfying. Demutsky even samples the iconic Mazurka melody by Carl Czerny from Harald Lander's "Études" (1948) and like they say ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it’.

Strong moments are again the pas de deux where we see tension and a range of dynamics and basically anything that travels. Elsewhere matters can get a bit empty and repetitive.

Lightfoot and León are fans of leg extensions so there's a lot of that, and also rapid gesture leaning towards the absurd. People around me often chuckled, but the content didn't take me there. I craved more sense of connection between the interludes and overarching choreographic structure. It just all felt too disperate to truly consider as a whole.

Again the dancers seemed to revel in the opportunity with standouts including Luca Acri, Marianna Tsembenhoi and Taisuke Nakao. Nakao is a very special dancer - we don't often see this level of dynamism and articulation with such understated sophistication. Just wow.

Overall So Are We is a stylish night that didn't touch me. Taste is personal, and I can feel when art touches my soul, and thus far, Lightfoot and León do not.

So Are We continues at the Royal Ballet and Opera until 20 June