Sadler’s Wells has long been a showcase theatre for dance companies from home and abroad — and, since Alistair Spalding has been at the helm, it has developed into a real power-house, in the range of work both that it brings in and that it gener-atesitself. No doubt, either, that it has built up a big, diverse audience.

Over the three days of last weekend, you could see varying programmes juxtaposing ballet, contemporary dance, flamenco, tap, hip-hop and martial arts, compiled as menus of “tasters”. With the overall title of Sadler’s Wells Sampled, the event was sponsored by Sony PlayStation, allowing cheap seats or “prom” places and packing the house with a buzz. The foyers offered interactive computer games and installations, which brought in the kids; a swathe of associated workshops enticed many to dip their feet in dance waters; and the public received all the items in the performances with rapt concentration and equal acclaim.

My main grouse about last Sunday’s show was the increasingly irritating presence of two female comperes, overconfident in their comic talents, who demanded that we shout out whether we were enjoying ourselves more times than you would get in a children’s show on the end of a pier.

I was taken by the opening piece, Winter Voyage (set to Schubert), by the Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat — he and Roy Assaf, shaven-headed and in long, sleeveless gowns, looking like twins and dancing like it, too, in an intimate duet with perfect duplication of fluid movement. I didn’t much care for a sample section from Justitia, by the Jasmin Vardimon Company, a group-therapy session involving strenuous hurtling around chairs and much confessional verbalising. But then, in contrast, came the wacky antics of Ye Gam Theatre, from Korea, in its popular tae kwon do acrobatic slapstick comedy, Jump.

The flamenco star Eva Yerbabuena, proud of carriage and prodigious in stampity-stamp, was followed by ballet pizzazz from dancers of American Ballet Theatre — equally strong technique there — and we closed with Drop It!, by the French hip-hop pioneer Franck II Louise, a rather pretentious male sextet in space-age armour and sulphurous lighting, but a vehicle for a range of robotics and slick moves, culminating in one chap’s amazing headspins as he corkscrewed into the stage. So, something for all tastes.

Like Spalding, Cassa Pancho is a dance person with a mission — in her case, as the founder (in 2001) ofBallet Black, to establish more role models for young black and Asian dancers in classical ballet in Britain. (Carlos Acosta, the Royal Ballet star, is, appropriately, patron of this small troupe.)

Currently, it has six dancers, only one of them home-grown, the enchantingly named Chantelle Gotobed. They are an attractive, well-matched group, and made an agreeable showing in a four-piece programme at the Linbury Theatre. It opened with Taniec, by their ballet master, Raymond Chai, a jaunty, buoyant trio. The Zimbabwean Bawren Tavaziva’s Umdlalo kaSisi is a reflection on love and loss, perhaps best appreciated if you understand the language of the voiceover narrative.

Antonia Franceschi’s Shift, Trip ... Catch includes a fierce, even frantic performance by the cellist Zoë Martlew of her own music; the choreography was zest-ful, with performances to match, though the piece felt all over the place. To close, the Royal Ballet’s young dancer-choreographer Liam Scarlett, with Hinterland, to Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No 2, made deft and inventive dances that confirmed his talent and originality. He, along with the enterprising Ballet Black, deserve all encouragement.

Upstairs, on the Opera House main stage, the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake is packing them in. Anthony Dowell’s 1987 production has always been a matter of taste — too cluttered with fussy business and gaudy in design (by Yolanda Sonnabend) for mine. But the choreographic text is strong, as is the company’s dancing. In the opening cast, Ivan Putrov, as Prince Siegfried, is — to the relief of all — back from a year’s recovery from a serious injury, with his virtuosity and classical refinement undimmed. But I found Roberta Marquez’s Odette/Odile overmannered and underinvolving; the emotional cylinders of that partnership didn’t fire for me.

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