We refreshed the music: some has been slowed right down and the songs have

“We refreshed the music: some has been slowed right down, and the songs have a melancholic, jazzy feel to them now, rather than a brassy feeling reminiscent of Broadway musicals.”Dominating the stage for the piece is a large, sweeping staircase, on which much of the dancing takes place. De Frutos is quick to stress: “It is not meant to be a gimmick. It is an extension of the stage, and it certainly gives the piece a sense of speed and danger.”Although the name Elsa Canasta suggests a woman, De Frutos says it means nothing, “although I have considered making up a story behind the name. I could have said it was a 17th-century countess who died in a gambling accident while falling down the stairs, but it isn’t. I guess the name is a way of humanising the whole piece – which is abstract – and keeping it closer to me.” Rambert Dance Company, Sadler’s Wells, London EC1, tomorrow to 29 Nov (020-7863 8000; ).

The Martha Graham Dance Company filled Sadler’s Wells with an audience of students. Graham was an icon of modern dance, and works like Appalachian Spring or Lamentation are vital dance history. Graham made her great roles for herself, and they lose power without her. This programme is weaker than the first: it has more of her solos, more dances where the Graham heroine is the point. Even so, they’re worth seeing for Graham’s authority as a choreographer, her command of pace, of stage space, of dramatic tension.Appalachian Spring still looks like a great work.

The dances are beautifully framed by Isamu Noguchi’s set, spare wooden bars outlining a farmhouse, a barn or chapel. Aaron Copland’s music, written as his “Ballet for Martha”, was warmly played by the Royal Ballet Sinfonia under Aaron Sherber.The archetypal figures – bride, groom, pioneer woman, preacher – are outlined in spare gestures and in bright, sharp-footed dances. The preacher is followed everywhere by dizzy girls in bonnets. As they group and regroup around him, his prayers are woven into something like a hoedown. The dances for the bride and groom celebrate love and daily life in lovely social dances.This was a lightweight performance.

Those springing steps need stronger rhythm, more texture to the turns and footwork. Graham surrounds the dances with space, figures standing still against the sky. This cast lacks the authority for such stillness, for the weighted gestures. They go through it with the earnest glare of dancers who want you to understand what they’re feeling.A series of solos is dominated by Lamentation, first danced in 1930.