Balletboyz: The Talent Tour – Lowry Theatre, Salford

Choreographer: Freddie Opoku Addaie, Paul Roberts, Russell Maliphant

Reviewer: Malcolm Wallace

The Public Reviews Rating:

Set up by former Royal Ballet principal dancers Michael Nunn and William Trevitt, Sadler’s Wells based Balletboyz is a dance company that has been quietly been gaining momentum and status across the country since its inception in 2001. It’s a shame that this current tour doesn’t show the true capabilities of this vibrant company.

The Talent brings together into one performance three short dance pieces; B-Banned choreographed by Freddie Opoku Addaie, Alpha choreographed Paul Roberts and Torsion choreographed by Russell Maliphant.

Balletboyz may be the name of the company, but these three pieces are far from traditional ballet and there is a distinctly contemporary theme running throughout which may not be to everyone’s taste. Furthermore, those people who do appreciate this type of dance may find The Talent lacking in diversity and originality. Whilst all three pieces do contain some excellent choreography, they all appear to be from the same ilk, which quickly becomes somewhat dull.

Things aren’t helped by the dancers, none of whom possess the stage presence required to capture and hold the attention of the audience for the duration of the performance. There’s no doubting the physical talent of these eight dancers, but it takes more than just being able to move well to succeed and these young men appear at best unable to engage with the audience and their fellow dancers and at worst, bored. There’s a lot of dancing in The Talent but very little performing.

Each of the three pieces is danced without any set, but simple and effective lighting designs by Andrew Ellis and Michael Hulls go a long way to creating the required atmosphere and tongue in cheek video footage of the cast is used to good effect to introduce the performance and between the first two pieces.

Ultimately though, this is a disappointing experience mainly due to the lack of charisma of the dancers. I am sure that in more capable hands The Talent, despite its unoriginality, could be a truly engaging and thought provoking experience.