Double Bill: Body and Soul & Proper Conduct – Sadler’s Wells
At Sadler’s Wells, English National Ballet present Body and Soul, an evening that places two distinct choreographic worlds side by side. The result is not simply contrast, but a dialogue between systems: one that refines complexity through precision, and another that questions what happens when that complexity is judged and reshaped.
The first half, Body and Soul (Part 1) by Crystal Pite, unfolds with striking precision. Movement is tightly structured, intricate, and deeply interdependent, as if each dancer forms part of a larger mechanism. The ensemble work surges and contracts with exact timing, while smaller duets draw focus inward, exploring power, conflict, and moments of human vulnerability.
There is a tactile quality beneath the control. Spoken French directives thread through the choreography, reinforcing the sense of an engineered system while never fully flattening its emotional charge. Pite’s choreography moves seamlessly between large-scale ensemble sculpting and more intimate encounters, allowing grief, tension and connection to surface within the structure. The result is absorbing rather than immersive. One watches closely, aware of the complexity being executed, appreciating the architecture of the piece as much as the feeling within it.
That sense of control carries into the interval, only to be quietly reconfigured in the second half.
The second half, Proper Conduct (Part 2) by Kameron N. Saunders, begins in a different register. The stage opens into a looser, more expansive space, and the orchestra pit comes fully into play, the live score blending with electronic textures and evolving into a pulsing, techno-inflected rhythm. The music becomes a driving force in the piece, lending it a distinctly modern, almost club-like energy, and standing out as one of the most compelling elements of the second half.
The opening movement feels open, even celebratory. Dancers move with visible freedom, responding to one another with a fluidity that reads as lived rather than imposed. There is a sense of collective joy, of bodies negotiating space and connection in real time.
Then a voice enters.
Presented as an AI presence, it does not observe so much as evaluate. It suggests that something beneath this apparent harmony is flawed, that correction is required. What follows gives that idea its clearest form.
A central sequence shifts the focus onto the body itself. Dancers move into close, sensual contact, their choreography drawing on touch, proximity, and desire. Outer garments fall away to reveal flesh-toned layers that suggest nudity, placing physicality and instinct at the centre of the stage. The movement is not chaotic. It is coherent, relational, and alive. It is this embodied, instinctive state that seems to draw the AI’s attention most sharply.
It is also the moment that appears to be marked for change.
Nothing has altered physically yet, but the framing has shifted. What was previously experienced as expressive now carries the weight of judgement. The suggestion that this state requires correction lingers over the stage before any visible transformation takes place.
From there, the work tightens. The darker tones give way to a stark white environment, almost sheet-like in its uniformity, as if the stage itself has been reset. Figures emerge within it dressed in white, almost all masked, with the exception of the dancer embodying the AI presence, their appearance and movement distinctly android-like. Movement becomes more uniform, more controlled, less differentiated, with individuality dissolving into a shared, regulated form.
The trajectory is clear. Freedom gives way to order. Variability is replaced by consistency.
What makes this progression compelling is not the final image, but the point at which it begins. The moment where a living, complex state is quietly defined as insufficient. The choreography that follows simply enacts that decision.
Taken together, the two works offer contrasting expressions of control. In Pite’s piece, precision operates in service of complexity, allowing multiple layers of meaning and connection to coexist. In Saunders’ work, control emerges as a corrective force, narrowing the field of expression in pursuit of uniformity. Its genre-crossing, sci-fi-inflected language gives the work a striking visual and thematic identity, though its message becomes more direct in its later stages. What remains consistent is the clarity of its central pivot: the point at which human variability is identified as something to be managed.
Both are exacting in their own way. Only one preserves the full range of what it contains.
The evening does not settle into a single interpretation. It invites reflection. The AI presence, rather than functioning as an independent force, feels shaped by human anxieties about disorder, instinct, and the parts of ourselves that resist easy definition. The question that lingers is not only what such a system might do, but what assumptions it inherits.
Body and Soul leaves a lasting impression not through spectacle alone, but through the tension it sustains. Between structure and freedom. Between clarity and complexity. Between the desire to shape the human experience and the risk of reducing it.
Despite its ideas, the evening remains accessible and engaging, offering a compelling entry point for those new to contemporary ballet as well as those more familiar with the form. That tension remains, long after the stage has emptied.
PRESS IMAGES TO COME SOON
Cast & Creatives
- Showing: 20–28 March 2026, 7:30pm
- Sadler’s Wells, Rosebery Avenue, London EC1R 4TN
- English National Ballet
- Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes (including one 25 minute interval)
- Body and Soul (Part 1)
Original creation: Paris Opera Ballet
Text: Spoken French directional text
Music: Owen Belton
Additional music: Frédéric Chopin
Voice: Marina Hands
Scenography: Jay Gower Taylor
Costume design: Nancy Bryant
Lighting design: Tom Visser
Stager: Eric Beauchesne
- Proper Conduct (Part 2)
Choreography: Kameron N. Saunders
Assistant choreographer: Prince Lyons
Music: Brandon Finklea and Harold Walker III
Orchestration: Gavin Sutherland
Designs: Kimie Nakano
Lighting design: Joshie Harriette
Performed by: English National Ballet Philharmonic
- Creative Team:
Artistic Director: Aaron S. Watkin
Associate Artistic Director: Loïc Le Brun
- Cast (English National Ballet)
Alice Bellini, Ivana Bueno, Zai Calliste, Anna Ciriano, Ashley Coupal, Shunhei Fuchiyama, Gareth Haw, Emma Hawes, Minju Kang, Sangeun Lee, Swanice Luong, José María Lorca Menchón, Rentaro Nakaaki, Haruhi Otani, Rodrigo Pinto, Fabian Reimair, Ken Saruhashi, Sacha Venkatasawmy, Anna-Babette Winkler
A striking contrast between precision and control
Summary
English National Ballet’s Body and Soul presents a compelling double bill, contrasting Crystal Pite’s intricate precision with Kameron N. Saunders’ contemporary exploration of control and human instinct. The second half, driven by a powerful live and techno-inflected score, moves from joyful physical expression towards unsettling uniformity. Visually striking and thought-provoking, it remains accessible and engaging, offering a strong entry point for newcomers to contemporary ballet.
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