Reemergence

In the first half of tonight’s double bill by Scottish Ballet, Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang whacks her drums with such force, she breaks her drumstick. That level of full on, powerful gusto is a theme across the evening, where there are no slouches, from the dancers, to the choreographers, right through to Scottish Ballet’s artistic director Christopher Hampson who made the bold decision to pair the mighty Crystal Pite with the idiosyncratic Julia Cheng.

Performance

Scottish Ballet: “Entress” by Julia Cheng / “Emergence” by Crystal Pite

Place

Theatre Royal, Glasgow, September 10, 2026

Words

Claire Sawers

Scottish Ballet in “Emergence” by Crystal Pite. Photograph by Andy Ross

Scottish Ballet commissioned a new work from Cheng, a current associate artist of the Southbank Centre, who has made a name for herself through her striking choreography for “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” in London’s West End and on Broadway. Cheng is known for stitching together music, theatre and contemporary dance, and “Entress” is Cheng’s first ever work for a classical ballet company. A 45-minute piece in ten movements, “Entress” follows a female lead (Kayla-Maree Tarantolo, who recently danced the Jester in Scottish Ballet’s “Mary, Queen of Scots”) as she moves through a murky narrative, from frustration and sorrow into emancipation. We first find her wading through a seabed of bodies, curled in on themselves, wrapped in black. Tarantolo twitches and contorts in febrile spasms, trying to shake free of something, being pulled under the waves of a sea just out of sight. We watch as she kicks to the surface, while a row of naked arms stretched upwards billow in a line around her, like seaweed fronds in a current.

Rishan Benjamin and Kayla-Maree Tarantolo in “Entress” by Julia Cheng. Photograph by Andy Ross

Isobel Waller-Bridge has composed the score (performed by the Scottish Ballet orchestra and Wang on timpani, Chinese da ga drum, cowbell and hand cymbals of various sizes) which rises from tense percussive spurts to a highly charged, energetic crescendo, possibly the moment when that drum stick snaps in two. There is a very satisfying gear shift when Tarantolo is transformed by the Chinese mythological goddess Nüwa (Rishan Benjamin in a billowing satin dress). As a billowing, transparent net cloud lowers and covers her body, her movements switch from tangled and tormented to more fluid and confident, as if some benign sorcery has liberated her. The net lifts again, and she is released from the cocoon, renewed. Some of the group formations in “Entress”—where supine bodies all raise bent knees together like a line of sundials, swaying together like shadows in the sun, or lift their hips and pointed toes to the sky in athletic shoulder stands—pave the way for the intense, exhilarating synchronicity to follow in “Emergence.”

Lewis Formby and Rishan Benjamin in “Emergence” by Crystal Pite. Photograph by Andy Ross

Scottish Ballet first premiered Crystal Pite’s “Emergence” in 2016, when it was a highlight of that year’s Edinburgh International Festival. It blew audiences away then and it dazzles no less tonight. The opening prologue between Urara Takata and Harvey Evans shows a body unravelling awkwardly, like a baby bird unfurling from its shell, and it reminds me of Aszure Barton’s choreography for Pandora last month in San Francisco’s “Mere Mortals,” performed in Edinburgh. Pandora, crafted from clay, twists and slithers in double jointed knots at first, then finds a smoother flow, as the gods breathe life into her. In “Emergence,” the whole corps de ballet ripple and oscillate as one, rotating in elegant waves or undulating like a row of dominoes, falling gracefully. The precision is astonishing; when the women dancers line up in a neat chorus line of shiny legs and bent-elbowed Barbie arms, they move as a hive-brain, linked by a collective consciousness. Pite explores insect and animal movements with pecking chicken heads, splayed frog legs and flapping wings—it’s a demanding and completely thrilling routine of strutting limbs and extended pointe sequences, like “Swan Lake” with more angular, angsty wings and a popping electronic score. Owen Belton’s eerie sound design is the mesmerising backdrop for a stunning trio between Roseanna Leney, Melissa Parsons and Grace Horler and many liquid-ankled group configurations, where limbs merge into military marching grids. Loud exhales and synchronised counting from the corps gives an unsettling drive to the movements, like a bee colony following swarm intelligence, or a chain gang grunting in unison as they work together. Absolutely hypnotic choreography, danced impressively with the kind of scrupulous, exact finesse that Pite is famous for eliciting from her dancers.

Claire Sawers

Claire Sawers is a freelance journalist, living in Edinburgh, Scotland. Claire has been writing about music, dance and the arts for over twenty years. She loves how dancing lights up bodies, speaks its own special language and transforms the energy in a room. She is particularly interested in the intersections between sound and movement, places where art forms merge and make brand new ones. She has been published in The Times, The Herald, The List, Fest and The Wire.

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Reemergence

In the first half of tonight’s double bill by Scottish Ballet, Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang whacks her drums with such force, she breaks her drumstick.