ABT Studio Company at the RBO Next Generation Festival
The American Ballet Theatre Studio Company opened this year’s Next Generation Festival with nine works at the Royal Ballet & Opera House…
Kayla Mak in Yannick Lebrun’s ‘Human’. © Rosalie O’Connor
American Ballet Theatre Studio Company
2025 Next Generation Festival bill: Tarantella, The Sleeping Beauty (Rose Adage), Birthday Variations (Pas de Deux), Gopak (Variation), U Don’t Know Me, Swan Lake (Act III Pas de Deux - Black Swan), Night Falls, Human, Interplay
★★★★✰
London, ROH Linbury Theatre
10 June 2025
www.abt.org
www.rbo.org.uk
Part of the 2025 Next Generation Festival
Running through to 29 June, the Royal Ballet’s 2025 Next Generation Festival is a fine celebration of youthful dance that draws together nine schools and junior companies from around the world. Last night a crack group of 12 dancers from the American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Studio Company opened the festival in scarily fine form. ABT Studio Company states they take in ‘…exceptionally promising dancers (currently ages 17-22)…’, and these are not hollow words — I can’t think of one dancer who was not technically accomplished and pretty much on the money.
In some respects, it was like seeing a company of soloists putting on a polished and glitzy all-American show. Of course, that’s not to say I enjoyed all the works they danced, and if there was one overall criticism, it’s that bringing nine pieces, mostly short excerpts, could feel really flashy and not a little insubstantial.
The show began where I think it might have ended — with Balanchine’s Tarantella and Hershy Kay’s take on Gottschalk’s ever-cantering score, augmented by much tambourine bashing from the dancers. Done well, it’s a pure adrenaline rush of speed and complexity, here made little of by the ever-smiling Kayla Mak and Max Barker. Impeccably well-rehearsed, they delivered the technical fireworks, with terrific jumps from him, but it was Mak, with her long legs, who had the extra panache and winning presence. ‘She has everything,’ my note simply said!
There was more happiness on display in the Rose Adage section from The Sleeping Beauty, led by Sooha Park and four, more than reliable, princes keen to secure her affection. A terrifying role for any ballerina, but Park made light of the technical complexity, if in years to come she will mine the dramatic side as well. Of the princes, it was Maximilian Catazaro who particularly impressed with the quality of his partnering and the effortless way he lifted his Aurora up onto his shoulder — super slick and well-rehearsed. It all made for impressive classical watching, if perhaps the ever-deliriously happy expressions could be knocked back a bit.
Less known in the UK is Gerald Arpino’s Birthday Variations. Arpino was a founding dancer, choreographer and director of the Joffrey Ballet, and Birthday Variations, nearly 40 years old, is a relatively late piece of his to some emotional Verdi. Here, we saw just the stately and slow pas de deux section, with yet more smiling and classical smoothness. And it was followed by even more grinning, courtesy of Ptolemy Gidney, in a variation of Rostislav Zakharov’s Gopak (taken from his Taras Bulba ballet of 1940). It lasts well under 2 minutes, but it’s cheeky show-off excitement all the way, and the tall and lean Gidney really went for it. And the audience responded with much applause - Gidney did well.
At last, there was a change in what had seemed a sea of geniality and old work with the recently minted U Don’t Know Me by Houston Thomas. American-trained Thomas spent ten years at Dresden Semperoper Ballett (rising to soloist), and you can see that different European exposure to Forsythe and David Dawson (particularly) in his work here. To some Arvo Pärt fractured violin scrapings and stark piano, the six dancers are clad in flattering, blue-patterned all-in-ones (Keto Dancewear) and tread a line between absorbed introspection and natural playful outwardness. It’s modern and assured work, with much turning and sculptural clarity, and playful silhouette sections. You get the feeling of some underlying inspiration, if sadly it’s not at all obvious in the dance what it is. Nada. It thus becomes a broadly affable abstract diversion.
After the interval, we were back to more classical dazzle with the Black Swan pas de deux from Swan Lake. It was nicely led by Yeonseo Choi, who coupled fine steps with much winning personality and a delightfully imperious hauteur. No wonder Maximilian Catazaro was bewitched. He was a good-looking partner and generally delivered on his own tricky steps, though there were the occasional heavy landings from jumps.
American Ballet Theatre apprentice Brady Farrar, an alumnus of the Studio Company, created his Night Falls only last year. To a Chopin Nocturne, it’s danced in black costumes under moody lighting, and while accomplished for a young choreographer, it feels smoothly overwrought. There was more bite and tone in Human, choreographed by Alvin Ailey dancer Yannick Lebrun and based around Blick Bassy’s song Ngwa about a Cameroonian freedom fighter. Manifest as a solo for Kayla Mak, who really picked up on the moving heft of the background, the choreography was the most contemporary of the night by a pleasant margin. Fast-paced and expansive one moment, then caught up in slow, compact movement introspection at others. But it could also be twisty and rubber-like, with an occasional tribal foot stamp. And there was no mistaking what was going on in the quiet Dying-Swan-like ending.
The show closed out with the most substantial work of the evening, though one not particularly to my liking. Jerome Robbins’s Interplay dates from 1945, the very earliest days of what became ABT, and is about youngsters at play. To a jazzy score (Morton Gould), it picks up on Broadway hoofing and the Jets/Sharks vibe from West Side Story (which Robbins created some 12 years later). I recognise the craft and togetherness of the eight dancers, but it was only the duet in the middle that really grabbed my attention with its clever, closely-hugging lifts. The audience lapped it up, as the company would wish, though it does feel like old work these days.
ABT Studio Company performs again tonight (11 June 2025) and are long since sold out. Dancers this good, if not all the repertoire, are certainly worth catching, so pray for a return. That and make a mental note to book early next time they are over in the UK.