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This has been a week of biting tragedy. At a time dominated by mourning and remembrance, to attend a dance performance may feel like an act of disrespect to those who died in Tuesday’s attack on the World Trade Centre. And in a world preparing itself for conflict, is dance important anyway? In such an atmosphere BRB performed Ashton’s 1940 war ballet Dante Sonata . Seen on another occasion its might have been viewed merely as a legacy piece, interesting primarily to Ashton fans because of what it says about his development as a choreographer. Performed in the current environment it was viscerally poignant. Danced against Sophie Fedorovitch’s stark and simple backdrop, which was based on John Flaxman’s illustrations for Dante’s Inferno, the ballet evokes the battle between “good” and “evil” played out under searchlight effects. Written when the outcome of World War II was far from certain, it was as much a prediction of inevitable Nazi defeat, as was Noel Cowards’ film “In Which We Serve.”

The piece is undeniably mannered and dated, with more than a whiff of Isadora Duncan about it. Yet it contains movements that still shock and terrorise. Ironically it is the forces of “evil” which are piled up towards the end in a withering pyramid, an image with parallels to the piles of bodies found heaped carelessly together when the concentration camps were liberated. While the work is in many ways a simplistic statement, there are moments, particularly at the end with both camps lifting up their crucified colleagues, when the ballet acknowledges that neither the victors nor those defeated are spared the pain of conflict.

On 21st June 1941, following a performance of Dante Sonata in which Ashton himself appeared, replacing Leslie Edwards who had already gone to war, it was announced by Ninette de Valois that Ashton, Somes and Carter were leaving to join him. The effect of her words must have been very powerful. Sixty years later, last night’s audience, (like those who rose at the Royal Albert Hall to sing Jerusalem at the end of the Proms), expressed their patriotism in their response to this revival.

The programme did not, however, begin in a sombre mood, but with Bintley’s newly completed work, The Seasons, performed to Verdi’s Les quatres saisons, part of his opera Les vepres siciliennes. Opening with four men standing in fifth position, the ballet is sprightly and filled with life’s joy. The girls who join them looked smashing in tart, velvet tutus topped with Moulin Rouge style cossets. The movements are set against simple colour backdrops, not unlike Balanchine’s Jewels. There are also echoes of his style in Bintley’s use of pointe.

Each season’s “spirit” is reflected in the dancing grammar used for that episode - lighting turns and jumps for Winter, sustained lifts for Spring, sensuous arm movements and lower ground work for Summer and fast Neapolitan footwork for Autumn - but they are unified in the continual use of consecutive turns, lifts and kicks, an indication of time moving forwards. All performed well, and their ensemble dancing redeemed the BRB’s dismal corps display in Swan Lake of the previous week. Particularly noteworthy were Nao Sakuma and Chi Cao as Spring and Leticia Muller and Andrew Murphy as Autumn’s pair.

The night finished with another message piece, Bintley’s enormously likeable “Still Life” At The Penguin Café. As with a photograph, a dancing image can often have greater impact than words, and Bintley’s concerned environmental statement is more powerful and hard hitting ironically because it is coated in such soft humour. Particularly lovely was Angela Paul replacing Dorcas Walters as a Ginger Rogers type hoofer, and you can recruit me for the hoe-down if James Grundy’s Texan Kangaroo Rat is going to be there. Noteworthy also were the “herd” of grazing lady zebras led by a very elegant and sexy Chi Cao whose murder by unseen hunters was all the more jolting for its unexpectedness. But the winner simply for sheer vivacity was Carol-Anne Miller’ little Humboldt’s Hog-nosed Skunk Flea dancing merrily with a group of Morris Men, and showing that even the smallest of creatures can be charismatic.

This review began by questioning the value of dance in these frightening times. Last evening many left the theatre having smiled for the first time in days. As long as there is “still life” in all of us, dance’s ability to act as a pinprick of elation is reason enough.