Review: American Ballet Theatre Studio Company sets the barre high

The death of classical ballet, long predicted, never happens because a new generation of dancers find themselves entranced by its discipline and drama. Wave after wave keeps on coming, through good times and bad. It’s their talent and commitment that the Next Generation festival, hosted annually by the Royal Ballet, seeks to celebrate.

The atmosphere is always unusually warm, with youngsters in the audience willing on their counterparts from around the world as they offer an insight not only into their own skills but also the style of the companies to which they aspire to belong.

This year’s incarnation, taking over the Linbury theatre until the end of the month, features a range that extends far beyond ballet: it closes with the hip-hop prowess of ZooNation’s Youth Company, and also encompasses the Rambert School and youngsters from the Chance to Dance programme from Doncaster and Essex. There are programmes from the Royal Ballet School, English National Ballet School and Ballet Central, the touring wing of the Central School.

From abroad, there’s the Youth Company of the Finnish National Ballet, Paris Opera Junior Ballet and – kicking off proceedings with exceptional dazzle – the New York-based American Ballet Theatre (ABT) Studio Company. Its opening programme set the bar, or even the barre, exceptionally high.

Dancers aged between 17 and 22 flash through a programme that runs from popular classical highlights to new work, showcasing not only the technical prowess but also the versatility of these young hopefuls. If there’s a slight sense of trying on grownup clothes that don’t quite fit, there’s also an impressive degree of polish, as Yeonseo Choi, with lyrical arms, a gently tilted head and steely balance, tackles the famous Rose Adage from The Sleeping Beauty or an incredibly young Audrey Tovar-Dunster and an attentive Elijah Geolina swish through the tambourine-bashing intricacies of Balanchine’s Tarantella.

Ptolemy Gidney triggered spontaneous applause for his sheer bravura in a variation from Gopak, a Soviet-era piece by Rostislav Zakharov, inspired by Ukrainian folk traditions, and full of twisty, dramatic leaps (revoltades) and broad, look-at-me joy.

In these classical variations, the dancers exhibit similar qualities. Their feet are exceptionally sharp and clearly placed, their movements precise and eye-catchingly fast. In Houston Thomas’s U Don’t Know Me, created for the Studio Company last year, they adapt to a more contemporary style in a piece full of enigmatic encounters and yearning gestures. Kayla Mak is notably expressive, as she is in Human, a work by Alvin Ailey’s Yannick Lebrun that sends movement juddering through her body in sharp contractions.

In the more conventional but lyrical Night Falls, one of ABT’s own aspirant choreographers, Brady Farrar, uses Chopin as an accompaniment to a melting duet, performed with deep feeling and musicality by Paloma Livellara and Geolina.

But it takes Jerome Robbins, a true American master, to show off all the enthusiasm and freshness of these young dancers. Interplay was his second ballet, choreographed in 1945, just after his huge success with Fancy Free. It has all the swagger and punch of confident youth, as men in bright T-shirts and women in citrus tulle-skirted leotards circle each other, teasing, challenging and flirtatious.

The steps are both beautifully shaped and full of vitality: hands that punch down, forward rolls and cartwheels punctuating elegant groupings and rapid pirouettes. It’s full of life and love for dance, and a perfect conclusion to an uplifting evening.

Next Generation festival 2025 runs at the Royal Opera House until 29 June