On launching the world's first cross-Atlantic ballet company three years ago, choreographer Christopher Wheeldon gave himself an ongoing dilemma: to see if there is a way of appealing to the specialised tastes of London and New York with the same live performance/dance film package. He hasn't discovered it yet, and at the moment, to judge by the opening night of his company's short residency at Sadler's Wells, the Big Apple is getting the upper hand. That's where the money is, presumably.

As Scheijen makes clear, the emotional dynamics of the Ballets Russes were as relentless as the financial pressures. Diaghilev was always happy to trample on the feelings of his colleagues if he thought that the outcome merited it and at different times we see Fokine, Benois, Bakst and Nijinsky all desolated by jealousy and injured amour-propre. We are presented with a charming and ruthless tyrant, whose sexual and emotional manipulations of those around him were born of a need for absolute control.

If Nashville is primarily known among arts aficionados worldwide as the birthplace of country music, it may well be Nashville Ballet that secures the city's place among the world's top-flight purveyors of the fine arts - quite frankly, that's just how impressive the company's efforts are. Whether it is performing a new and daring work of modern ballet, focusing on the creative efforts of contemporary choreographers, or the re-imagination of classic works, Nashville Ballet excels.

The ballet calls it a tribute, not to the Ripper, but to his victims. But some victims of violence think the on-stage blood is too realistic and want the GRBC to go in a different direction.

Continuum, his second work to Gyorgy Ligeti’s piano music after his famously fine Polyphonia, is just as magnificent, another ballet from the dark, astringent side of his talent which shouts what a master dancemaker Wheeldon can be. The music [img]http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=theartsdeskco-21&l=as2&o=2&a=B000024KJF[/img]refuses to ingratiate - the notes spill out of the two pianos in haphazard dissonances, or sound long, mysterious chords - while the choreography’s superb command of pose, manipulative ingenuity and damn-your-eyes stillness demonstrates that only someone with a strong thought to utter can afford to speak it deliberately. Continuum is remarkable for its bold and unhurried curiosity about the iconic male-female balancing act. There are shades of Balanchine’s Agon in its almost physiotherapeutic pas de deux, some grippingly slow promenades where the man parades the woman in fascinating ways. In one strange sequence, the man crawls on all fours around the woman’s feet while she leans on him in a deep penché, a laconic, inviolable goddess in a mystical aesthetic realm.

The film follows the book's overall narrative, which faithfully takes Li from his rigorous training at the Beijing Dance Academy (whose "honorary" artistic director was Jiang), where he is guided by the kind head of the choreography department, played with a subtle poignancy by Zhang Su. This teacher, whose real name was Xiao, was harassed and persecuted by the authorities, and his reappearance at the end of the story to see Li dance in China provides one of the film's most affecting scenes.

In one episode from Li's early years as a dancer, Jiang shows up to see a classical ballet. Displaying her own classic, beady stare, she lashes out at the teaching staff. "Where are the guns?" she exclaims. "Where are the grenades? Where are the political meanings?"

While classical ballets such as "Giselle," "Coppelia," "Swan Lake," "Sleeping Beauty" and "Romeo and Juliet" are regularly staged throughout the world, newer works are constantly being added to the repertory. Today, thanks to the advent of the DVD, contemporary works have a much better chance of gaining widespread notice. "Before VHS and DVDs, you had to travel to see new ballets," Mills said. "There's so much good work being done today, and it's important to keep informed. That's how I found out about Alan's 'Sleepy Hollow' ballet. The moment I saw it on the DVD, I knew I wanted to do it here. It was the complexity of the story that appealed to me.