Festival review: Deborah Colker Dance Company: Tatyana; Edinburgh Playhouse

SOME choreographers get better with age, some struggle for inspiration and become jaded. Deborah Colker is most definitely one of the former.

During her earlier works such as Rota and Knot, bringing a large-scale theatricality to the stage felt like the main agenda. While in her last work, Cruel, storytelling and emotion were placed centre stage. Now, with Tatyana, Colker has brought both these priorities together, and the result is stunning.

Inspired by Alexander Pushkin’s 19th-century Russian novel Eugene Onegin, this two-act ballet manages to weave a narrative thread, while simultaneously hitting us with some remarkable visual images. Colker has boiled the story down to just four characters – the bored aristocrat Onegin, his poet friend Lensky, and sisters Tatyana and Olga.

In the first half, each is played by four dancers dressed in the same colours (all the Tatyanas in pink, Olgas in green etc) to bring out a sense of character. Then, after the interval, only Eugene and Tatyana remain, with eight dancers now taking on each role as their tragic love story is played out.

It’s a fascinating device which, surprisingly, rather than watering down the characters and their emotions, only serves to make them stronger. Pushkin’s story, abstracted but still recognisable, is set against two very different but equally striking backdrops.

Initially, a huge wooden “tree” dominates the stage, towering high into the air. Yet despite its height, it doesn’t prevent the dancers from climbing up it, or sliding and jumping off it. In act two, technology takes over, with screens and lighting creating one atmospheric vignette after another.

Although Colker is a contemporary choreographer, Tatyana looks and feels like a classical ballet in many respects, not least the beautiful pointe work and emotive score that takes us through stirring works by Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Stravinsky.

Rating: *****

• Until Tuesday. Today 7:30pm.