Lovely dancers, pity about the programme, was my feeling about last week’s joint appearance at Sadler’s Wells by the Australian Ballet and Bangarra Dance Theatre, the company that blends contemporary dance with indigenous Aboriginal culture. The classical troupe splashed out on their restaging of Léonide Massine’s Les Présages, to Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, which in 1933 was the first of a series of controversial “symphonic ballets” made for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Then some of their dancers joined Bangarra for Stephen Page’s Rites, an interpretation of The Rite of Spring.

Tatiana Leskova, who reconstructed Les Présages for Paris and various other companies, danced and worked for Massine, so her production of the choreography may be regarded as authentic. This version comes in designs by Toer van Schayk for the Dutch National Ballet, based on the 1930s originals by André Masson. The decor is unfathomable, and includes something uncannily like the face of Gromit the dog. The plot Massine imposed on the music, about a man’s struggle with his destiny, is no less flummoxing.

In the first movement, Action, Danielle Rowe, in an orange shift, is assailed by the airborne Daniel Gaudiello and an ensemble representing Temptation — though the leaping of men and cantering of women seems blandly innocuous. There is a lot of curious gesturing. Passion, the second movement, brings a graceful if unexciting pas de deux for Olivia Bell (Passion) and Adam Bull (L’Homme), then a sudden eruption by a white-faced demon in black and green, with much jumping and portentous posturing. Apparently, this is Destiny (Tristan Message). Meanwhile, the corps are posed in decorously static groups that would look awfully nice in picture books — and perhaps that is where this ballet should have been left.

In the short third movement, Frivolity, Leanne Stojmenov and an all-female ensemble dance a light-hearted interlude. Then the last movement, War and Peace, brings semaphoring and shaking of fists, strobe lights and a stylised army shuffle-marching before Bull (now called The Hero) is held aloft, triumphant. It is all, sad to relate, desperately old-fashioned, but at least we can say that we have seen an episode from ballet’s past — once. The company danced it with dedication.

For Rites, Page proposes to capture “the spiritual essence” of the four elements, earth, wind, fire and water, each with its own ritual. A man, in a loincloth, named Yellow Ochre (Patrick Thaiday), presides over a squirming tribe. A kind of goddess and her cavaliers dance balletically. We have cavorting acrobatics, plodding figures shrouded in lace, processions with bowls of smoking earth, the pouring of libations, the daubing of bodies and a final thrash around on a white-powdered floor. The movement, energetic though it is, seems to have little relationship to the music. What might have seemed promising on paper is disappointing in impact. (Think what a marvel Pina Bausch achieved on a peat-covered stage.)

A happier occasion, also at the Wells, was the Richard Alston Dance Company’s special programme, 40/60, marking Alston’s 60th birthday and the 40th anni- versary of his first choreography. He has shaped so much in the development of British contemporary dance since he emerged in the first generation of students at The Place and struck out on his own with a questing, polished style and eclectic musicality.

His recent piece, Shuffle It Right (London premiere), treats nine of Hoagy Carmichael’s songs with a fluid stream of dance, layered with casual elegance and wit. It has exuberant male solos and a lovely reflective one for Anneli Binder, at the end, to Stardust. The closing world premiere, Blow Over, to music by Philip Glass, with lyrics by Paul Simon and Suzanne Vega, glitters in black and silver, keeping a cast of 10 busy in speedy, propulsive movement. But more rewarding, in the middle, was The Men in My Life, a selection Alston made from his choreography for male dancers, spanning 1971 to 2007 — including Jason Piper, stately in Water Music; Martin Lawrance, sensitive in Shimmer; Darren Ellis and Andres de Blust-Mommaerts in Rumours, Visions; and the wonderful Jonathan Goddard in the sharp and intricate detail of Dutiful Ducks.

The Royal Ballet opened its new season last weekend at Covent Garden with Swan Lake — a safe bet for audiences, but a full-company test that found them on good form. Soloists who scintillated included Lauren Cuthbertson, Yuhui Choe and Jose Martin in the pas de trois, and Laura Morera with Ricardo Cervera in the Neapolitan dance.

Odette/Odile and Prince Siegfried were Marianela Nuñez and Thiago Soares, who are off-stage affianced and finely attuned in their dancing. The lakeside duets were particularly beautiful and subtle in feeling. Boris Gruzin conducted Tchaikovsky majestically. Anthony Dowell’s production is strong on choreographic text. Yolanda Sonnabend’s designs may have been inspired by Fabergé, but her ballroom is more redolent of Liberace at Las Vegas.

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