Dance review: Scottish Ballet Autumn Season

You only have to look at the company choreographer Crystal Pite is keeping these days to know that she's hot property. A new work for Paris Opera Ballet opened last month, and her creation for the Royal Ballet receives its premiere in March. So to have Pite's Emergence in Scottish Ballet's autumn tour is an indication of just how good our national ballet company is looking at the moment.

Scottish Ballet presents the world premiere of Sibilo, choreographed by company dancer and choreographer, Sophie Laplane, at the Theatre Royal Glasgow, as part of their Autumn Season 2016, in a programme which also includes Crystal Pites Emergence. PIC: Jane Hobson.

Scottish Ballet Autumn Season *****

Theatre Royal Glasgow

It’s not hyperbole to call Emergence a work of genius. Pite’s homage to animal and insect swarms takes the entire 36-strong company and turns it into something more at home in a hive or flying through the sky. Arms and legs bend and twist in ways that almost defy human anatomy. The unison is so tight, it’s as if the dancers are sharing one breath, while the patterns Pite creates on stage leave you simply longing to watch it all over again the second it finishes.

By rights, a young choreographer at the start of her career should pale into insignificance in the shadow of such greatness. And yet in the case of Sophie Laplane’s Sibilo, nothing could be further from the truth. A dancer with Scottish Ballet since 2004, Laplane has proffered small nuggets of choreography, but this is her first 30-minute piece – and it’s superb. Quirky, angular moves performed by four couples with wit and sensuality meet clever costuming that literally flies off the stage, in a work that would be at home in any major European theatre.

KELLY APTER