Danse

“There just is no other way for me to create,” Alastair Marriott tells me when I ask him about his choreographic influences. Through an impressive career with The Royal Ballet, Marriott absorbed their distinctive way of infusing movement with meaning. While he has a deep reverence for the narrative works of Ashton, Cranko and MacMillan, it’s clear Marriott relishes the idea of creating his own work.

In a sweltering Havana studio, the dancers of Malpaso – one of Cuba’s premier contemporary dance companies – have been without electricity for three days. Yet, as they rehearse choreographer Pedro Ruiz’s new piece, The Essence of Us, they are smiling. Dripping with sweat, they remain alert and eager to create.

From London, where he is in the final stages of shaping his new work for English National Ballet, choreographer Jae Man Joo reflects on the path that has led him here. In 1996, Joo left Seoul for New York City – three decades later he is one of the rare Korean-born choreographers in the diaspora sought after both in Korea and abroad, and the first to be commissioned by a leading UK company.

“This show started in a shed in East London – a shed with a tin roof, that fitted 250 people in it. Now it’s been to Romania with 3000 people watching!” Former Scottish Ballet soloist Jamiel Devernay-Laurence is talking to me by video call from a hotel in Edinburgh having just finished teaching a class. His Ballet Nights is appearing for a week of shows at The Fringe.