English National Ballet School / Rambert School at the RBO Next Generation Festival

English National Ballet School and Rambert School presented a joint show at this year’s Next Generation Festival…

Zia Husbands and Nicholas Bondar of Rambert School in Faye Stoeser’s ‘Lunar Tales’. © Amber Hunt, Photography by ASH.

English National Ballet School / Rambert School
ENBS: Etudes on a Theme of Satie, Aphiēmi, Ruff Celts
Rambert: The Inn Between, The Hilkravrs, Waltzes in Disorder, Lunar Tales
★★★✰✰
London, ROH Linbury Theatre
27 June 2025, matinee
enbschool.org.uk
www.rbo.org.uk
Part of the 2025 Next Generation Festival

I find school performances fascinating — not just to see new generations coming through, which is always uplifting, but particularly for spotting the choreographic choices. Schools often commission new works and bring back old, less frequently seen pieces — for those who consume dance movement, they are fertile ground. Of the seven works presented by the English National Ballet School (ENBS) and Rambert School as part of the Royal Ballet and Opera House’s 2025 Next Generation Festival, I had only seen one before. So, lots to observe, although, as with all new work, it can be a bumpy ride.

The show opened with ENBS performing Lynne Charles’ Etudes on a Theme of Satie. Charles is the school’s new Artistic Director, and Etudes was originally created for the Royal Danish Ballet nine years ago. Satie’s stark and mysterious piano pieces (Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes) command attention, and it’s hard to hear them without thinking of Frederick Ashton’s glorious and otherworldly Monotones. Charles roots the music firmly in the here and now by using it to illustrate ‘…a dancer’s never-ending quest for perfection at the barre.’ Cue three ballet barres centre stage and various combinations of school students practising and bobbing/weaving around them, including moments of exhaustion. At the start, it could seem a tough call (read poor choice) for the students, trying to be meticulously together all the time — there is nowhere to hide with music and movement this stark.

Somewhat confusing the issue was the inclusion of English National Ballet (ENB) Soloist (and Bolshoi-trained) Anna Nevzerova — a guest performance mentioned on the RBO website, but rather poorly not acknowledged anywhere in the programme or cast sheet. Nevzerova was there to (presumably) show where all the training could get you, but also to display her own moments of exhaustion and collapse at the barre, of which there felt too many. Negatively, Nevzerova rather competed for attention when the students were given their own material to sell.

The best of Etudes came towards the end in a section actually choreographed by Juan Eymar, one of the ENBS school tutors, in a slickly poignant duet for Iori Miura (misspelled as Iori Muira throughout the cast sheet¹) and Zai Calliste. This picked up on the mysteries of emotion, and for once we seemed to break free of the barre prop (and Nevzerova) and concentrate on smoothly honed choreography that engaged with the music at another level. Both dancers looked the finished article, and the tall and commanding Calliste has now been taken into the main (ENB) company. Excellent news.

Rambert School opened their account with The Inn Between: ‘…a work that delves into the complexities of decision-making and is a co-creation between choreographer Julian Nichols and the dancers.’ Following the old tradition of Etudes, visually this felt fresh, modern, and youthful fun, particularly in its costuming (Jacob Elliot Roberts), which surprisingly featured Elizabethan ruffs. It announced itself with an opening, stage-wide Mexican wave of feet, and the oddball antics didn’t really stop, set against its largely electronic and eclectic score. There was much play with a line of chairs, pulsing group togetherness, spawning odd solos all punctuated by regular air raid sirens and whistle-blowing delimiters. I’m not sure what it really said about decision-making, but I am sure the students had a ball and exhausting time making it. It feels, however, like a one-off work rather than one that would feature long in any company repertoire.

Also for Rambert’s graduating year was Miguel Altunaga‘s The Hilkravrs. Sadly, Altunaga’s programme notes tend to be perplexing and waffly. I mention this because that confusion of intent/inspiration really shows in the dance and isn’t compensated for by Altunaga’s sense of attention-grabbing theatre. There’s a strange start as a neon ’Live on Air’ sign is ceremoniously brought on stage, followed by a Latin routine to old 1930s dance-hall music. It then morphs into something more modern with a Pina Bausch-like line of dancers, more general contemporary movement with big arms, a ‘march of the zombies’, and some African tribal dance vibes, as Hilkravrs relentlessly builds up with fizzing energy. There are lots of separate interesting images — it was sold well by the students — but the lack of coherence, structure, and clear through-line makes for frustration. Even Google and ChatGPT don’t know what Hilkravrs is or are!

After the interval, we got the best work of the show. Richard Alston‘s Waltzes in Disorder, to Brahms’ Liebeslieder Walzer, was for Rambert’s second years, and they really delivered at a professional level. Within seconds of the curtain rising, you see gloriously clear expansive movement and a fabulous male turning jump — breathtakingly high. It’s about a relationship and the impact of a newcomer on group dynamics, but really the joy of Waltzes lies in seeing the gentle romance of Brahms against the bold open dynamism of Alston. This is buoyant, intelligent, and original dance without gimmicks, and nothing was smudged by the students. It remains much to the discredit of the Arts Council that they effectively forced Alston to shutter his company in 2020.

There was more romantic music in Aphiēmi, a duet for ENBS by Lynne Charles, danced by Haru Yokoo and the much-in-demand Zai Calliste. It’s a take on the last act Swan Lake pas de deux, where Odette forgives the Prince. However, rather than use the original music, it goes with Tchaikovsky’s Elegy for Strings to deliver a seven-minute pas de deux that starts with the weight of her crushing hurt and ends in forgiveness and displays of tender love. Last year, Yokoo and Calliste had lead roles in the ENB/ENBS My First Ballet version of Swan Lake, so they know each other and the emotional drama well. The result was a magical bit of ballet, albeit very traditional rather than feeling freshly minted today.

Faye Stoeser’s Lunar Tales, for Rambert, is inspired by the mysterious world of the night. Stoeser is very much a dancer and choreographer of today, and this piece proved edgy and dramatic, dressed in black with a spattering of rhinestones catching the moody downlighting. It started with a huddle of bodies, arms enfolding and wrapping the group this way and that to a low-key electronic/ambient track by Dasha Rush. The movement became more urban and snappy, picking up strongly with the thunderous drumming in Culoe De Song’s Rambo. There’s a lot of hypnotic repetition here and a particularly fine duet where the two dancers never lose contact, ever enfolding and wrapping around each other. Stoeser is one half of Ekleido, recently nominated in the National Dance Awards for a short film of theirs — the memorable Splice. They might not have won, but Stoeser is definitely one to watch.

Closing the show was Marguerite Donlon‘s Ruff Celts for ENBS. Donlon is hugely theatrical, and this is a very contemporary take on what it is to be Irish. It starts with Sinead O’Connor’s Never Get Old, which seems sage advice for student dancers. Ruff Celts uses many music tracks and is really a kaleidoscope of ideas, from the stereotype of boys out on the lash to girls with agency asserting their power. There’s a lot of floor and body slapping accompanied by shrieks and ’Hahs’, a neat opening using a line of dancers in silhouette, and space for various solos and duets, not least for Iori Miura and Zai Calliste, who so impressed at the top of the show. By the end, all seemed to embody the animated abandon of having a good time and marching onwards to a powerful future. Donlon might not be for the ballet traditionalist, but she is a terrific and thoughtfully exciting showman, and a bill featuring her, Alston, and Stoeser gives one hope for the students and for dance and its rich diversity.