Tulsa Ballet: Made in America review – fantastically flexible Oklahoman squad are A-OK!

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This small Oklahoman dance company, making its first visit to the UK, has been going for 70 years. For the last three decades its artistic director has been the Italian Marcello Angelini, who clearly sets standards high for his very finessed set of dancers (which includes Edward Truelove from England and a Scot, James Lachlan Murray).

That’s demonstrated especially in the opening piece of this triple bill, Classical Symphony by Yuri Possokhov, a Ukrainian choreographer now resident at San Francisco Ballet. Set to Prokofiev, Possokhov’s neoclassical dance has a bit of flex to it, a cheeky rock of the hips or other off-piste details, but always prioritises grace. For lead couple Nao Ota and Jun Masuda, it’s tricky, technical choreography, which they pull off with an absolute ease. The steps come in a long continuous flurry, but everything is neatly articulated with breezy elegance.

A scene from Divenere by Nicolo Fonte part of Made In America.

Divenere, by Nicolo Fonte is enmeshed with the music of wildly successful pianist Ludovico Einaudi and his pop-classical style of emoting through arpeggios. The choreography is very sympathetic to the music. So when the music is pretty but amorphous or insipid, the dance feels similar. But when the music is more focused, melodic, spacious or questioning, the dance follows suit – a solo for Masuda is especially compelling.

This is a programme designed to demonstrate the versatility of the company across three relatively short pieces. Remember Our Song is by Andy Blankenbuehler, a musical theatre choreographer best known for Hamilton, who condenses a whole musical’s worth of story into a swift quarter of an hour: boys off to war, the sweethearts they left behind, life in the navy, an underwater crisis, memories of home.

A scene from Remember Our Song by Andy Blankenbuehler, part of Made In America.

Blankenbuehler is great at mobilising bodies around the stage, although it is harder to invest in character in a short slice of time. The 1940s mood draws on jazz, swing, a bit of Charleston, and in the central role Teague Applegate has elegant verve, although you’d like to see him let loose and go the full Gene Kelly. In short, it’s interesting commissioning for an impressive company of dancers.