Stage review: Rambert - Bradford Alhambra

The audience, though good, was not packed to the rafters, as it should be. Yorkshire, I cannot overstate this: if we don’t appreciate this kind of world class art when it comes to our doorsteps – it won’t keep coming to our doorsteps.

The London-based company brought a triple bill to Bradford, opening with Wayne McGregor’s 2002 PreSentient it is a bold opening, Kym Sojourna a solitary figure, twisting and writhing looking like an extraterrestrial creature.

Stage review: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie - Sheffield CrucibleAs the stage becomes populated by the rest of the company, dancing to Steve Reich’s Triple Quartet, the other worldliness continues.

An energetic, engaging beginning to the evening, it is followed by an astounding piece of work. Rouge, by Marion Motin, choreographer for Christine and the Queens, is Tracy Emin’s bed. It is an episode of The Walking Dead, a David Lynch movie, it’s a perfume advert you can’t quite fathom, it is utterly beguiling. A grizzled guitarist stands on stage, smoke pouring from his hat and surrounding his feet.

He shreds his guitar like he’s done on a thousand nights on a thousand stages, when out of the mist a series of dancers appear – and then fall, appear, and fall. As the smoke clears and the dancers find their feet, they strut, and jut and lose themselves in wild abandon. It is terrifyingly beautiful and leaves you breathless.

Stage review: Black Waters, Leeds PlayhouseThe final piece, Hofesh Shechter’s famous In Your Rooms, is an intensely political piece of work that has only gained resonance since its 2007 debut.

A commentary on the power of the masses and the power to control the masses, Shechter puts political dissidence and how it is crushed on stage with a piece that resonates long after the curtain goes down. Let’s hope this company keeps coming back.

FIVE STARS