Skirt-swishing and stomach-dropping: Ukrainian Ballet Gala, at Sadler’s Wells, reviewed

Like musical supergroups and Olympic basketball teams, ballet galas tend to prize individual gifts over group cohesion. A recent one produced by dramaturg Olga Danylyuk and Royal Ballet alumni Ivan Putrov gathers Ukrainian dancers stationed at companies around America and Europe, plus soloists from the Ukrainian National Ballet, for a showcase of homeland talent. There’s definite star power on show — the cast is rounded off with leads from the Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, and Putrov himself was set to perform before an injury sidelined him — but with it some contrasting and occasionally competing performance styles.

These come to bear in System A/I, a new ensemble piece from Ludovic Ondiviela about androids powered by artificial intelligence. The choreography is sharp and mechanical, a bionic facsimile that plays on the idea of supplanting passion with precision; but where some dancers relish the simulation, others look plain robotic. Ironically, it’s a Brit who takes the limelight: the Royal’s Matthew Ball, sporting an air of creepy serenity as he ramrods his limbs into position. He emotes, but does he feel? The question lingers over his relationship with a pair of humans who purchase him for ambiguous reasons. (Butler? Bouncer? Third party in an ethically questionable throuple?) Like the androids themselves, the story is intriguing but not fully fleshed out.

The second half of the evening brings bold, showboating variations that capitalise on the performers’ classical training. Despite some wobbles between dancers not usually paired, it’s a bracing procession that works in regional colour, winking flamboyance and pincer-like pointework. Christine Shevchenko nails the shivering central to ‘The Dying Swan’, while Natalia de Froberville strikes up a tingling chemistry with Francesco Gabriele Frola in the grand pas de deux from Diana & Actaeon.