Ivan Putrov’s Men in Motion, which played at Sadler’s Wells earlier this year, will return to the theatre for an additional run from March 13 to 15. The evening includes works that showcase the “athleticism and beauty of the male form in motion”.

Principal dancer Sergei Polunin has resigned from The Royal Ballet with immediate effect, it was announced last night. Monica Mason, director of The Royal Ballet, said: “This has obviously come as a huge shock.”

I do wonder what they did to the peacock. In Kinkan Shonen, a 1978 work by Japanese butoh group Sankai Juku, a man dances with a live bird tucked under his arm. It seems to be in a trance. Even when he lets go of its neck, it sways its head from side to side, but doesn’t peck or struggle, let alone scream. For a peacock, that’s not natural.

“Only £5? Seriously?” Hip hop artist Jonzi D was compering Sadler’s Wells Sampled, but was still surprised when the audience told him how cheap their tickets had been. Back for a second year, Sampled is encouraging audiences to give dance a whirl: low prices, plenty of different styles on offer, a range of classes and events around the performances. The theatre was full and happy.

To mark more than 30 years of dance, La La La Human Steps founder and artistic director, Édouard Lock, has created New Work which brings together two great tragic operas: Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice. New Work receives its UK premiere at Sadler’s Wells on September 28 and shows at the venue until October 1, 2011.

Following the success of the Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s visit to Sadler’s Wells last year, the company made a swift return visit to London in early September with a repertoire consisting of the full length Don Quixote and a mixed programme of ballet “lollipops” called Magia de la Danza. Part of the success of the Cubans’ previous visit, for me at least, was the revelation of a troupe of dancers with a uniformity of schooling and style – a style that harks back to the era of the former Ballets Russes companies with whom Alicia Alonso, the founder of the Nacional Ballet, was a celebrated ballerina. The company also employs a variety of very talented principals and soloists, who could justifiably grace the stages of any number of ballet theatres across the globe. One cannot help but appreciate the high standards of dancing that Alicia Alonso has been able to develop – she is the Cuban equivalent of Britain’s Ninette de Valois and Marie Rambert. What cannot be disguised, however, is the utter poverty of the company’s production values: threadbare backcloths and rudimentary scenery; costumes and wigs that look as if they had been made 50 years ago for a school production – they do little to enhance the quality of the dancing or the veracity of the acting. Regular Dancing Times readers will be aware of the poor state of the rehearsal studios for the company and school in Havana, and there was an extraordinary response to our request for donations of new dance shoes and practice clothes for the company last summer. One can only hope that with more regular visits to Western Europe, the Nacional Ballet’s bank balance will become healthier.

Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Stravinsky programme was the unexpected hit of this Sadler’s Wells season. Triple bills are proverbially hard to sell, but ticket sales were brisk, audiences friendly. This season has brought a crop of new dancers, including the Estonian Linnar Looris, whom I saw as Balanchine’s Apollo. This was a sure, confident performance. Like the rest of his new company, Looris approaches this masterpiece with a respect that can be too polite. I’d like bolder, brighter rhythm from all the dancers. But Looris dances strongly, his steps cleanly articulated, while his gestures are lucid and well-timed. Virginia de Gersigny was a crisp Terpsichore, with Momoko Hirata and Laura Purkiss lively in the handmaidens’ dances.