Dance review Elegant work in progress through the decades

English National Ballet’s new season launches with a quadruple bill that follows a loose thread through ballet’s evolution over the best part of a century.

- Lyndsey Winship

R:Evolution Sadler's Wells, London ★★★★☆

We start in 1947, but looking back to the late 19th century, with George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, a neoclassical piece aping the Russian imperial ballet. It gently sparkles and proudly lays out its patterns and steps, academic in presentation but infused with deep love of the form. Yet there is hidden swagger that plants it firmly in the 20th century.