Royal Ballet, Royal Opera House, London<br></br>Contact, Queen's Theatre, London

Royal Ballet thrives without its leader

As dance-watchers hardly need reminding, the Royal Ballet shed its artistic director four weeks ago – under which circumstances it seemed right to allow the company a little sympathetic leeway as it scrambled together its first performance of the season.

Quite unnecessary, as it turns out. On Tuesday the Royal Ballet presented its triple bill with a degree of technical polish and triumphant verve that – given the amount of fur that has flown – was almost indecent. Bravo Monica Mason, ex-deputy director who has ably stepped into the breach. Bravo, paradoxically, Ross Stretton, for this was far and away the most interesting programme he had scheduled.

The novelty of the evening was Gong, a piece of arch orientalism from Mark Morris, whose Midas touch has until now evaded the Royal Ballet while boosting the stock of other top-flight companies around the world. Well, better late than never. Gong isn't new (it was made last year for American Ballet Theater), but it's as good as. And like other pieces Morris has created for classical companies, it treads a knife-blade balance between serious inventiveness and kitsch.

The composer is Colin McPhee, an American whose lifelong obsession with Balinese gamelan gives his music a march on John Adams's by a good 50 years. Tabuh-Tabuhan: a Toccata for Orchestra and Two Pianos pays court to the layered structures and glimmering timbres of Indonesian music while also embracing Western manners. One bit sounds like tinkling 1930s pop, another builds meatily on jazz.

Isaac Mizrahi's costumes are a similar East-West mix, the women in flappy tutus like succulent tropical flowers, the men in gold anklets and chunky earrings, giving them the curiously compromised air of dancing buddhas in a gay floor show.

As for the choreography, there are many moments of straightforward loveliness – a silent duet that starts with a pop-up lift and exquisitely slow descent; an ensemble that culminates in a whirling cloud of colour like a flurry of hummingbirds. But the overall feel is of remoteness and unease. Pagoda arms and splayed bent legs and feet jar amid the pointework and classical shapes. And for all the company's unfamiliarity with Morris's work, I'm sure this unease is deliberate.

The disintegration of traditional culture on Bali since McPhee's joyous and affirmative music was written is unlikely to have escaped Morris's attention. Gong, for all its decorativeness and occasional fun at Western ballet's expense, is also making a political point.

The bread in the evening's sandwich, as it were, is provided by Christopher Wheeldon and Mats Ek. Both Tryst and Carmen are familiar from last season, but both are more secure and sharply etched. Darcey Bussell in Tryst is more resplendent than ever in her long and engrossing duet with Jonathan Cope. Sylvie Guillem in Carmen is scuzzier, wilder, and even more staggeringly complex than before. There are few belly laughs in ballet, but one of the best I know is when Ek's Carmen emerges from inside the tented windbreak of her dress, puffing a lighted cigar.

Broadway choreographer Susan Stroman does a good line in humour, too, and puts it to highly original use in Contact, a trio of "dance plays" on a single theme. The least dancey of these, "The Swing", is a somewhat scurrilous animation of the famous Fragonard painting. What begins as girlish flirtation turns distinctly rutty as the young beau disappears to find a corkscrew for the picnic and the girl turns her attentions on the lackey. Many suggestive contortions of the swing later, there is a twist in the tale which (just) saves it from Benny Hill-dom.

More sophisticated is "Just Don't Move", starring Sarah Wildor. Her gift for sweetly modulated comedy was well established at the Royal Ballet, but here she reveals a new side: a pretty convincing ear for dialogue. Wildor plays a 1950s Brooklyn housewife, out for a meal with her psychopathic husband. "Don't talk, don't smile, and don't fucking move!" he tells her with increasing menace as he repeatedly leaves the table in search of a bread roll.

Once alone, Wildor indulges her private reveries (to a soundtrack of Boston Pops tunes), imagining herself as a glamorous dancer, pirouetting off tables and chairs and being romanced by the head waiter. Great comic mileage is had from the husband's frequent returns (the wife freezing in her tracks), from her fellow diners' obliviousness, and from her mounting joy at the imaginative release. Tragic and touching, and hugely entertaining, both performance and concept score top marks.

The title piece, "Contact", is a typically Big Apple story about a successful guy who's really a mess. When Michael Praed winds up in a late-night swing-dance club, his suicidal mood is hardly relieved by the discovery that the girl of his dreams (the gorgeous Leigh Zimmerman) is only seduceable in dance. And he's got two left feet. Sassy, fabulously inventive swing sequences, John Weidman's pithy text, and a highly original denouement make this a show truly to die for.

j.gilbert@independent.co.uk

Royal Ballet triple bill: ROH, London WC2 (020 7304 4000), Monday and 4, 5, 6 Nov. 'Contact': Queen's Theatre, London W1 (0870 890 1110), to 22 Feb