English National Ballet’s new season launches with a quadruple bill that follows a loose thread through ballet’s evolution over the best part of a century. We start in 1947, but looking back to the late 19th century, with George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations, a neoclassical piece aping the Russian imperial ballet. View image in fullscreen Buttery développés … Alice Mariani, centre, in Theme and Variations with ENB. View image in fullscreen Stark and stylised … Emily Suzuki and Rentaro Nakaaki in Errand into the Maze. Like Balanchine, Forsythe is also marvelling at this dance and these dancers.