British audiences know they'll get no sex and violence from Richard Alston. No steamy narratives either. Dancers will not stare balefully at them. What Alston has always delivered—as director of Ballet Rambert from 1986 to 1992 and since then as director of his own company—are skillfully designed, scrupulously musical dances that create the image of a sweet-tempered tribe at play. The 11 dancers' feet are busy; their bodies curve and tilt with the music's flow. You can posit an influence from Merce Cunningham, with whom Alston studied in the 1970s, and from lyrical ballet of the sort Alston's compatriot Frederick Ashton excelled at. However, Alston's distinctive, gently quirky movement is more abandoned than Cunningham's, and the dancers band more often in unison, all facing the... More >>>