Dance review: Stunning group work drives Ballet BC’s high-energy TRILOGY
Company looks sharp across opening program of eclectic, full-throttle LILA, mysterious SWAY, and epic BOLERO X
Artists of Ballet BC in LILA by Sofia Nappi. Photo by Millissa Martin
Ballet BC presented TRILOGY at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre to November 8
DRIVEN BY SUPERCHARGED ENERGY, Ballet BC’s season-opening TRILOGY never let up. The momentum crackled across the swirling bodies of Medhi Walerski’s SWAY, the frenetic crouching figures of newcomer Sofia Nappi’s LILA, and the throbbing hive that was Shahar Binyamini’s exhilarating, 50-dancer BOLERO X.
Ballet BC artistic director Walerski’s sophisticated SWAY opened the program, featuring a dancer leaning surreally away from a column of performers, then setting in motion a whirl of bodies, caught up in time and the tides of life. The highlight was the intricate play with balance and tension; at one point Jacalyn Tatro and Luca Afflito pulled away from each other in a long, luxurious extension, snapping back only after it seemed they might topple.
SWAY was about hope, but never in a sentimental way; it burned amid an orange-y, otherworldly light with Adrien Cornet’s skittery electro-score, offsetting a mysterious, restless, near-dystopian universe. The ending, featuring a dancer ever so slowly leaning off-axis again, was breathtaking.
The only premiere on the program came from in-demand young Italian choreographer Nappi. LILA reached its thrilling heights in the full-throttle, whole-company group work that opened and closed the piece. Bodies heaved, hunched, and lunged, rooted low to the ground yet pumping their arms skyward. Adriano Popolo Rubbio’s costumes blended rich hues of burgundy, camel, and black, punctuated by the odd vinyl hood.
LILA drew dynamically on Batsheva Dance’s earthy Gaga technique (Nappi has studied with the likes of Hofesh Shechter), but there were countless other references. Using a soundtrack that flitted eclectically from Angolan singer-songwriter Waldemar Bastos to Costa Rican–born Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, the midsection captured the randomness of life and its sense of constant discovery.
Amid the flowing, narrative-feeling vignettes, solos and pairs free-sampled the languages of everything from hip-hop floor work to folk and social dance. Nappi has a talent for showcasing the individual vibe of each dancer, and there was innovative partner work, including an offbeat pairing with Joziah German and Sidney Chuckas that was as physically intense as it was emotionally charged. Lighting designer Matthew Piton made atmospheric, inventive use of shifting spotlights—not to mention clever use of blackouts at the end.
Artists of Ballet BC and Arts Umbrella in BOLERO X by Shahar Binyamini. Photo by Millissa Martin
The audience went wild for the piece. Ditto, as expected, for Binyamini’s BOLERO X—the dazzling, breathlessly building, Gaga-driven 2025 work set to Maurice Ravel’s crescendoing Bolero.
The epic piece’s familiar opening flute notes sounded out in the dark, and Emanuel Dostine gradually emerged from the darkness in a powerful solo. As the light lifted, a small army of dancers—amped up by members of Arts Umbrella—appeared on all fours, arms arranged like pillars circling Dostine. From there, limbs pumped like pistons and flailed like jellyfish tentacles; legs dipped perilously into splits as dancers lurched and lunged like the world’s most beautiful arachnids, sometimes curling backward into arching, alien Cs. The fully committed performers, dressed in nude tops and second-skin black-latex bottoms, hit just the right mix of erotic hunger and animal fierceness.
BOLERO X remains one of the most spectacular commissions in Ballet BC’s repertoire—and this young, sharp company, with magnetic standouts like Eduardo Jiménez Cabrera, Orlando Harbutt, Kiana Jung, Kelsey Lewis, and so many more, was up to its high-octane demands. The audience members leaped to their feet the moment it ended—for the third time in the evening. The energy, it would seem, was contagious. 
Ballet BC dancers Luca Afflitto and Jacalyn Tatro in SWAY by Medhi Walerski. Photo by Millissa Martin
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