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Last night marked an important stage in Federico Bonelli's directorship of Northern Ballet, the first programme designed by him. It was a resounding success, the first showing by the company of one of the masterpieces of the last century, in my view, Hans van Manen's Adagio Hammerklavier; a world premiere by New York City Ballet dancer Tiler Peck; the revised (extended) version of Benjamin Ella's work originally created on some of his Royal Ballet colleagues. The Tiler Peck piece, Intimate Pages, was created to Janacek's string quartet, also called Intimate Pages. Many choreographers have produced ballets to this marvellous score, most notably, for me, Christopher Bruce, for Rambert in 1984, who represented the composer's passionate but doomed love affair with a married woman (the story behind the score) and wonderfully performed by Rambert dancers who in those days were deeply expressive. Bonelli claims that this is Tiler's first dramatic, as opposed to pure dance, ballet. However the plot was not so clear to me, just a young man in relationships with various young women, but the dance was exciting, with some patterns at times that reminded me of Balanchine, and choreography for the leading man that was fast and furious. The dancers responded with lively and precise movement and Harris Beattie was outstanding in the lead. Ben Ella's piece, Joie de Vivre, was the first piece and was an excellent opener. Created on violin and piano pieces by Sibelius, played live, as was all the music in the programme, it features three couples, with Joseph Taylor and Dominique Larose the leading couple. It kept reminding me of Robbins in the interplay between the dancers not unlike that in places in Dances at a Gathering and one lift exiting the stage was similar to one in In the Night. The dancers, who included Sarah Chun and Harris Beattie both so prominent later in Intimate Pages, danced fluently and communicated the relationships, between couples but also between the sexes, amusingly. My one reservation is that, although Sibelius is one of my favourite composers, there was insufficient variety in the pieces chosen. The centrepiece was the van Manen ballet. It was restaged by Rachel Beaujean and Larisa Lezhnina of Dutch National Ballet (both remarkable but very different ballerinas in their day) and they and the NB team (Bonelli himself took some rehearsals, having danced with DNB before joining the Royal) have done an excellent job. The choreography requires that dancers' arms or legs are absolutely parallel in places so precise accuracy is essential but they could not be faulted. It starts very slowly, possibly too slowly for some members of the audience but it is in keeping with the wonderful music by Beethoven. All the dancers were good, but Joseph Taylor was quite outstanding in a duet with Dominique Larose, I simply couldn't imagine any other dancer doing better. The choreography was quite complicated and varied and, as always with van Manen, there were emotional undercurrents in the relationship, but he conveyed them all with great clarity. Remarkable for a first performance. I just hope Kevin O'Hare will be inspired to bring back van Manen's Four Schumann Pieces, created on Dowell, Collier, Penney and Eagling; he was at the performance and is even listed as supporting the production of Adagio Hammerklavier. So, altogether a very good evening. Ideally an even more varied programme, for example with a more dramatic piece, might balance and contrast the dance emphasis. But the choreography was good, testing the dancers and giving them an opportunity to demonstrate just what good dancers they are now. On the surface the bill demonstrated what a good position the company is in, artistically and in dance standards; but as for other companies the current economic climate poses a threat. I'm sure all of you who can see the bill at the Linbury will enjoy it. I liked it so much I'd like to book an extra performance; but as my final train home was cancelled, I may not risk another evening performance and just stick with the matinee next Saturday.

It does not seem like five years ago since I saw the first performance of the Dutch National Ballet's Junior Company at the Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam. I had come to Amsterdam to see the young African-American dancer Michaela DePrince about whom I had heard a lot. When I saw her with Sho Yamada in a pas de deux from Diana and Actaeon I described her as "quite simply the most exciting dancer I have seen for quite a while". But she was not the only one to impress me. Sho Yamada who partnered her in that piece was also a thrill to watch and so in different ways were all the others. DePrince rose very quickly through the Dutch National Ballet's ranks. She entered the main company as an eleve after only a year with the Juniors. She was elevated very quickly to coryphee, grand sujet and soloist. She has written books, given masterclasses, appeared as a guest artist for companies around the world. Still in her early twenties she is probably one of the best known names in ballet. But Yamada has risen quickly too. The last time I was in Amsterdam at the end of February he danced Don Basilio in the company's Don Quixote and his Kitri was his Junior Company contemporary, Riho Sakamoto. Other contemporaries are making their mark in choreography. Cristianp Principato who entered the Junior Company in 2014 managed the whole New Moves sharing of the company's latest choreography. As I have never studied Dutch I can only make out the gist of a speech or conversation but I think the company's director, Red Brandsen, attributed the success of those artists to their time in the Junior Company in an opening speech that he delivered before the Junior Company's 5th anniversary show. If I am right, Brandsen described the Junior Company as a bridge between school and company allowing the young dancer space and time to mature. The fifth anniversary performance took place on Sunday, 15 April at the Staddschouwburg which is where I saw the company for the first time nearly 5 years ago. It is a beautiful theatre which was the National Ballet and Opera companies' home before they moved to the Stopera. The company presented a triple bill starting with extracts from Bournonville's Napoli, continuing with a new work by Juanjo Arques called Fingers in the Air for which members of the audience and cast were issued with miniature red and green torches with which we were asked to vote at various times Big Brother style and finishing off with Hans van Manen's In the Future which was a very witty but somewhat alarming piece. I have reviewed the show in Terpsichore if anyone wants to read it. During the second interval Ted Brandsen spotted me and came over to chat. He very kindly invited me to the after-show party where I was able to discuss Arques's Fingers with their creator. I asked him what would have happened had the votes gone the other way at which he smiled and assured me that was unlikely because he was able to regulate audience reaction. "Sounds a bit like Cambridge Analytica" I ventured. Again he smiled and admitted that his work might have a political dimension. I couldn't stay long as I had a flight back to Leeds early the next morning but I introduced myself to the 12 dancers who had impressed me considerably with their virtuosity and I made the acquaintance of Macro Gerris, the hip hop choreographer who had collaborated with Ernst Meisner very successfully on Narnia - The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe some years ago and who appears to have repeated that success in is latest collaboration with Meisner based on Grimms' Fairy Tales. Every show by the Junior Company has been good but I think last Sunday's was the company''s best yet. The original company has done very well but I suspect that we can expect even greater things from this season's cohort over the next few years.

Gutted not to have been able to make this performance tonight, but I hope others will comment.