English National Ballet: The Forsythe Programme review – infectious pleasure

Sadler’s Wells, London
A triple bill of works by the celebrated American choreographer William Forsythe show ENB’s dancers at their roof-raising best

It’s no coincidence that so many of a new generation of choreographers have danced for William Forsythe, the most influential dance-maker since George Balanchine. It’s not just that he encourages thought and creativity, enabling people such as Crystal Pite, Emily Molnar and Jill Johnson to emerge as significant forces in their own right. It’s also that he makes dancers look so powerful, majestic, in control of time and space and their own destinies.

English National Ballet’s The Forsythe Programme, which has been filling Sadler’s Wells with adoring audiences this past week, is a case in point. In three contrasting works, the sense of dance prowess realised springs from the questing character of Forsythe himself. Never a man to rest on his laurels, in his mid-70s he’s still refining and rethinking dance. He seems constantly to ask himself what something is, turning it like a diamond to see how the facets will refract the light.