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At the heart of the evening is Clark's O a "re-working", more a homage perhaps, to Balanchine's 1928 neo-Classical masterpiece, Apollo, and a homage moreover to the celebrated partnership of Balanchine with Igor Stravinsky. As with Balanchine, Clark understands that dance arises through the music symbiotically, rather than merely dressing it. Like Balanchine, Clark responds to the intellectualism of the score with a fluid lyricism, exploring and expressing the musical structure, the very nuts and bolts of Stravinsky's musicality and most especially the score's serenity. He is most nobly assisted in this by the 22-year old prodigy (whom I knew as a timpanist at University) Robin Ticciati, a very Apollo himself, conducting the recently formed, and very youthful, "Aurora Ensemble", playing the Apollon Musagète with an alertness and a ravishing beauty. Clark is inventive with his subject. The birth of Apollo, so beautiful under Balanchine, and I believe now omitted from New York and Mariisnky presentations, is here presented with stunning directness. Apollo, trapped in a large mirrored cube, crawls up and down its walls, exploring them, reaching out, feeling his way, learning sensations. Eventually he is able to release himself pushing at the large door and as he does so, at first tentatively and then with more ease, the stage becomes bathed in light. Visual imagery of the highest order: simple of means, but grand in its effect.
 

The first part of O is more traditional Clark, set to the punk rock of "Iggy Pop" (amongst others), but nevertheless absolutely classical in its integrity. Here Clark, as an Alex de Large figure, complete with trademark baby-pin, commands his Droogs who dance, writhe, crawl and slither, with an almost Ashtonian sensibility. A black-and-pink striped floor compliments wonderfully the black-and-pink striped costumes (try watching it from the side, as I did, and the patterns of colour are most intriguing). As with the Stravinsky, Clark's choreography breathes through the music, the pulsations of the punk beat pulsating the rhythm of the dance.

The show is on at the Barbican until Saturday and demands repeated viewings. Thereafter it travels to Oxford, Sheffield, Brighton, Nottingham, Eastleigh and Glasgow. Catch it if you can.