THERE are nights when you can feel the va va voom in a theatre, busy with the buzz of expectant chatter and excited faces of all ages.

Birmingham Royal Ballet (BRB) is Britain's premier touring ballet company; York Theatre Royal is a mid-scale venue for touring theatre. We may love the old girl, but she does not usually catch the eye of a peacock with the strut of the BRB.

Thankfully, Britain's ballet companies and the Arts Council came together 18 months ago in a mission to take ballet to more theatres. Result: BRB is fluttering its eyelids at York in three performances this week, with the Theatre Royal cast in the role of a satellite outpost to the Birmingham company's regular north-eastern residency in Sunderland.

Director David Bintley has brought north three works of contrasting light and shade, style and vintage that add up to a superbly balanced programme.

To the accompaniment of the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, Bintley opens the evening with his own work, Allegri Diversi, a classical piece from 1987 that has not been performed for a while (and wholly justifies his decision to restore it to the repertoire).

Set to the music of Gioacchino Rossini, it is an abstract construction for eight dancers, a celebration of "beautiful music and beautiful dance" in which there is no narrative but the pursuit of love is all around. At its core is a delicious and delicate pas de deux in which Chi Cao complements the dazzling pointe work of Lei Zhao. The costumes float; she floats even more, and spirits soar higher than the temperature in the theatre, where the heating has been turned up 20 degrees for the athletic comfort of these dancing racehorses.

What a joyous start, and the jolt to the senses comes all too soon in the revival of Sir Frederick Ashton's wartime alarum, Dante Sonata, which has lain dormant since the 1950s. Heavenly white meets constrictive, serpentine black, good clashes with evil, and Children of Light are invaded by Children of Darkness, in this cosmic modernist piece with no pointe work but political points, danced to Franz Liszt's haunting music (a lone voice of calm in the hands of pianist Jonathan Higgins).

After this stinging salt, the night ends with the sugar rush of Elite Syncopations, Kenneth MacMillan's 1974 ragtime fiesta in swirling leotard costumes as gaudy as Liquorice Allsorts, backed on stage by a Mardi Gras ragtime band in dandy stripes. Light as candy, even flippant, it peaks with the comic contortions of Kosuke Yamamoto as he tries to lift the bigger Silvia Jimenez.

Negotiations are under way for BRB to return, hopefully next year. Hurry back, please.

Birmingham Royal Ballet, York Theatre Royal, today at 2pm and 7.30pm. Box office 01904 623568

Updated: 11:24 Wednesday, April 21, 2004