Nexus

Duration 13’
Choreography by Mikaela Polley
Commission by the Royal Ballet School
Performed at the Royal Opera House Linbury Theatre, London, March 6th 2015
In the autumn of 2014, the choreographer and Ballet mistress of Ballet Rambert, Mikaela Polley, was asked by Christopher Powney, Director of the Royal Ballet School in London, to create a piece that would celebrate the training given to ballet dancers in the UK. The dancers would be made up of four of the most pre-eminent professional schools, and Philip Feeney was asked to write the music. This unusual piece was a unique one-off, with the dancers only coming together under the same roof on the day of the performance.

To create the choreography, Polley worked in each school separately. The work is indeed in four sections, but to avoid the simplistic design of a section dedicated to each school, she crossfaded one group of dancers into another halfway through the musical sections.

Adopting a highly energized, minimalist, but deliberately dispersive electronic style, Feeney creates a score that is dynamic and celebrative throughout. At times rhythmic, at times suspended and evocative, but at all times very colourful, the music aims to express the youth, vitality and sheer joy that the young dancers are experiencing.