Fascinating news of the errant Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, apparently not lost to ballet just yet. Following his sudden walkout from the world-famous company where he was trained and nurtured as the most promising young man for decades, he is returning to Sadler's Wells in a mere three weeks with the independent programme of male ballet put on by his compatriot-in-rebellion Ivan Putrov.
The programme, entitled Men in Motion, was hit on its opening in late January by the tsunami of publicity surrounding Polunin and by the less positive effect of the last-minute unavailability of three of its billed Russian stars, apparently kept back by visa problems. This time a different set of men will accompany Putrov and Polunin - former Royal Ballet principal Tim Matiakis and two leads from Spain's Compañia Nacional de Danza, Isaac Montilor and Clyde Archer.
A new signal of Polunin's intentions is that he himself will choreograph a work on the bill. This time it's also expected that Nacho Duato's kooky male trio, Remanso - cancelled last time due to the visa obstructions - will be performed.
Also on the programme will be Leon Jacobson’s Vestris – a solo originally choreographed in 1969 for a young Mikhail Baryshnikov after he won the International Ballet Competition in Moscow - and Vaslav Nijinsky’s L'après-midi d'un faune, an iconic work for the male dancer created a century ago.
