"She put women in pants," Canfield says of Chanel. "That's a grand statement."

It's also the reason the dancer in the title role, Rebecca Brimhall, dons a pants costume. The designer's penchant for elegant comfort came through loud and clear when she took her customers out of cumbersome petticoats and restrictive corsets. Women the world over finally were able to breathe a collective sigh of relief once Chanel made ladies pants fashion-forward.

The standing ovations never seemed to end last night for the opening of the Joffrey Ballet's Othello. The company danced their hearts for a sell out crowd and the excitement was over the top. The scenery, costumes and music all came together for a perfect performance.

With its half-a-million-dollar budget and the eyes of the ballet world firmly set on its feathered frippery, there's a lot riding on the show. So far, however, tickets have been selling like hotcakes and the company recently added a sixth show to its local run to meet the unprecedented response.

Where to start with reviewing the "Diaghilev" evening of new choreographies at Sadler’s Wells last night? With the cool clean head of Wayne McGregor’s or the hot poxed genitals of Javier de Frutos’s? Well, as it’s a 100th birthday party for Diaghilev's iconoclastic Ballets Russes, there’s no harm in pointing out that the poxed genitals are an awful lot more amusing (with the accent on awful) than the familiar McGregorian chant of BSc theses to swot up while watching his dances.

I have nothing against cerebral good taste, especially with the calibre of stage partners offered here by McGregor in Dyad 1909 (the clever scientific term for a pair). The best thing for me was the luxury packaging, with some gorgeous video projections of rotating machinery and snowy wastes by Jane and Louise Wilson, some cute black Swarovski crystal masks worn over Gap-style vests and pants, and a furry Antarctic explorer loitering about like a polar bearer. The explorer is presumably Ernest Shackleton, whose South Pole expedition took place just as Diaghilev was throwing open the Pandora’s Box of dance theatre that was the Ballets Russes.

Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, by Javier De Frutos to Ravel’s La Valse, is an attack on the Roman Catholic church, with a hunchback Pope who attacks and abuses his altar boy and a pregnant woman - a tedious attempt to create a scandal.

Diaghilev brought together great artists whose works have lasted. No sign of that here though - without the pretentiousness of the title, it is a reasonable show of contemporary choreography with good dancers. Judge it for yourself, as it will be a December treat on BBC 4.

The broadcast will be part of a series of BBC programmes marking the 100th anniversary of the Ballets Russes, which will also include For Art’s Sake - The Story of the Ballets Russes and In the Spirit of Diaghilev, which will be both be broadcast on BBC4.



The Rite of Spring is being led by the Balletboyz - Michael Nunn and William Trevitt - who will handpick a mixture of amateur and professional dancers to perform the ballet. All the dancers selected will be experienced in different dancing styles, including contemporary, tango and pole dancing.

The guest designer has a history with the Minnesota Ballet. Finke, a Carlton native, grew up taking dance classes at the School of the Minnesota Ballet and doing summer tours with the company, and in the process developed a lasting relationship with Gardner.

Today she lives in Manhattan’s West Village, navigates the city’s garment district with ease, and tours the world for weeks at a time with the dance company Merce Cunningham.

Witts and her fellow Ballet Austin performers are used to challenges by now, attending daily morning warm-up classes that begin with exercises at the barre and move on to floor work. Dancers, sporting classic chignons, are dressed in an assortment of tights, leotards and workout wear as they take instruction on improving posture and movement.

“At the company level, it’s really about refining the smaller points of your technique,” Witts explained.

Worries about funds have had other effects on the development of Morphoses. When Wheeldon founded it three years ago, he imagined it as a permanent company splitting its time between the States and Europe. The nose-dive in the economy made fund-raising for that vision just too much of an ask.

So the staff has stayed tiny – there are just three of them – and the dancers are recruited at the start of each season, and include guests from the Royal (Edward Watson, Leanne Benjamin) and New York City Ballet (Wendy Whelan). Many return again and again, but Wheeldon cannot afford to pay full-time dancers.

Diaghilev's famous challenge to Jean Cocteau – "Surprise me" – became the catchphrase for his legendary company Les Ballets Russes. It was the touchstone of his mission to transform ballet into the most chic, experimental art form of its time. But even Diaghilev might have been shocked by one of the four new works commissioned by Sadler's Wells to mark the Ballets Russes' centenary.

In Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, Javier de Frutos pays tribute to Cocteau, channelling the artist's camp, extravagant aesthetic and his ambivalent Catholic faith. The work imagines a religious cult that's part Rome, part Marquis de Sade. Cast with a hunchbacked Pope, pregnant nuns and horny priests, it is set in a crypt decorated with frescoes of priapic men. Its rituals climax in some of the most graphic scenes of sex and violence seen on the dance stage.