Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Triple Bills offer audiences a chance to see the versatility of the company - and never more so than in the current offering On Your Marks!

Forming part of the Birmingham 2022 and Birmingham International Dance Festivals, the programme is inspired by the Commonwealth Games and features three very different pieces.

The evening begins with the world premiere of Brazilian choreographer Juliano Nunes’ Interlinked. Created with the company, the work is inspired by the core beliefs of the Games which include respect, understanding and tolerance.

Interlinked is strongly classical although with a crossing over of male and female roles. All the dancers, male and female, are dressed in loose tutu-style costumes coloured to their skin tones and all the dancers, male and female are presenting steps which would usually be associated with the female dancers.

Right down to a pas de deux featuring Brandon Lawrence and Tzu-Chao Chou in which there is a real sense of connection as Lawrence counter-balances Chou and even lifts him. The score, created specifically for the piece by Luke Howard is played beautifully by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, moving between celebration to achingly delicate.

Will Tuckett’s Lazuli Sky was created for the company during the first lockdown and premiered at Birmingham Rep in October 2020 and online. Inspired by the blue skies painted with lapis lazuli, the most precious paint colour, by Renaissance artists, the work is full of hope – the expectation of a new day and renewal through nature.

Set to music by John Adams, Lazuli Sky positions the dancers against digital backdrops which place them at the centre of a whirling vortex under stark lighting created by Peter Teigen. At the centre, Lawrence again is impeccable, particularly in his pas de deux with Yu Kurihara.

The final work, 24, sees Spanish choreographer Jorge Crecis returning to his piece 12 which is in the Acosta Danza repertoire and re-imagining it for 24 dancers – half from Acosta Danza and half from BRB.

Energetic and unpredictable, the piece sees the dancers blending movement with throwing pink and green bottles to each other in quick-fire succession across the stage. There’s no doubt it has taken a good deal of practice and skill but it does raise the inevitable question of ‘is this dance?’ followed quickly by the next question of ‘does it matter if the audience enjoys it?’

There is, of course, no answer to that question as every company who performs defines its own dance and there will be some audience members who love 24 and some who don’t.

The programme is brimming with energy and there is a real sense of excitement from the company at tackling new work and being back performing before live audiences. With a packed programme to come through the rest of the year, this performance is very much On Your Marks, Get Set and Go.

Four stars

Reviewed by Diane Parkes at Birmingham Hippodrome on Thursday 23 June. BRB's On Your Marks continues to show at the theatre until Saturday 25 June.