Snow White's Dangerous Liasons

Performance ice skating is another medium awaiting a creative genius to choreograph it away from the family entertainment schedules. This Russian company's vision of Snow White is technically elegant, simple in its story-telling and spectacular: the pas de deux are passionate and dramatic, the villainy appropriately black and the hero as white as the heroine. If it lacks nuance and experimentation, the sheer thrill of high speed spins and lifts lends it an immediacy: in the hands of a radical director, it could become a genuinely challenging art form.

Of course, the very cost of converting a stage to an ice rink might militate against skating developing a contemporary branch: yet it has the dancers who could lead a movement revolution. In the past few years, ballet has taken a more contemporary path: The Northern Ballet Theatre were one of the first companies to look at linking a musical theatre sensibility to classical dance, and under Christopher Gable initiated a style which Matthew Bourne would later adapt.

NBT's artistic director, David Nixon, has taken a more traditional approach for Dangerous Liaisons. Apart from an awkward spoken word introduction to the second act and a scream towards the finale, the choreography is classical and formal. The pas de deux do sizzle in a way that would not be familiar to fans of Swan Lake, and the sexual energy lifts some traditional moves into a visceral dimension: in the period set and costumes, the eroticism is all the more vibrant. Yet these moments aside, NBT deliver a recognisable and slightly old fashioned ballet that will delight ballet fans rather than gather new audiences.