Stravinsky! A Celebration, Hippodrome, London

The score of The Rite of Spring revolutionised 20th-century music; the choreography fell out of repertory. Millicent Hodson's reconstruction is a curiosity; it gives a blurred sense of that 1913 dance, but it's more museum piece than rite.

The score of The Rite of Spring revolutionised 20th-century music; the choreography fell out of repertory. Millicent Hodson's reconstruction is a curiosity; it gives a blurred sense of that 1913 dance, but it's more museum piece than rite.

Hodson's Rite ends Birmingham Royal Ballet's Stravinsky bill, part of the city's three-year celebration of the composer. It's a poor ending to what should have been a fine programme.

There are few sources for Hodson's "reconstruction". She had to work out an order for the poses, decide how to get from one to another, and make them fit the music. This is guesswork dressed up as choreography - worse, as someone else's choreography.

That would matter less if Hodson's version worked. Her dancers stamp and jump, but never look driven by the music's rhythms. Carol-Anne Miller springs tirelessly in the Chosen Maiden's final dance. Everyone else looks detached. The Royal Ballet Sinfonia, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, need more violence in this great score. It was a relief to turn to two repertory pieces, Balanchine's Duo Concertant and Ashton's Scènes de Ballet.

Bare Bones 3 is a programme of new work. Bare Bones is the resident company of the national dance agency for Birmingham. The idea is admirable: the company commissions new work, and performances are in the round, with the audience very close. This is stripped-down dance, with costumes and props kept to a minimum.

The pity is that this year's work is so weak. Hans Tuerlings' Giornata is danced to three pop songs. The dancers wear jeans or dresses covered in stencilled words, and fling themselves about, but there's no abandon. Nobody is lost in music.

In Wendy Houston's Take Me Out, two dancers pretend to make a movie. One is a Tarantino-ish director figure, who rants about his use of music and discusses killing Bill. The second pants into a mic, or recites lines about masochism. Three women crawl sullenly about the stage, speechless.

Luca Silvestrini's To The Bone is the brightest of these pieces. River Carmalt and Vicki Manderson, stripped to their underwear, are carried on stage like dolls. On the soundtrack, we hear their voices. They arrange their movements to fit the tape. They talk their way into positions, giggle, fall out. It's too long, but the performances are lively.