‘We hope you enjoy the performance,’ announced the Tannoy before the lights went down for How did we get here? – the accent being put on ‘hope’, as though enjoyment was unlikely. I took a deep breath in anticipation of modern dance at its most portentous and pretentious, my expectations already depressed after imbibing some hot air from a note in the programme – ‘we feel our power, all the way to the edges of ourselves’ and so forth. How did we get here? Or should that be What am I doing here?

But what transpired was a thing of simple beauty: spare, precise, lucid, free of wanton gimmicks or histrionics. The choreographer Jules Cunningham (they/them) has previously worked with the companies of Merce Cunningham (no relation) and Michael Clark, and their interest in the dynamics of subtle gesture and the slow extension of limbs is something richly explored here. Emotion is not semaphored; nothing is emphatic; the atmosphere is meditative, introverted, with music treated freely.

Cunningham dances alongside a long-time collaborator Harry Alexander and a debutante, Melanie C, formerly of the Spice Girls no less, who at the rich age of 49 gives a remarkably strong, focused and confident performance for which no allowances need be made. This trio pass through various combinations and divisions: a prayerful response to Nina Simone in which they seem both united and apart; a touchingly tentative solo for Mel C in which she appears to be recalling what she learnt at childhood ballet class; warriors limbering up menacingly for combat; ‘Dido’s Lament’ from Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, played out by Cunningham prostrate on the floor; a smoochy duet for Mel C and Alexander to a melancholy song by Janis Ian, with Cunningham jamming and jiving alongside them wielding an electric guitar. Only at the end does the pace quicken and the mood brighten with the descent of a glitterball.

Staged in the round on a translucent black surface at the stalls level of Sadler’s Wells, it all lasts an hour by the clock. But it suspends time and holds the audience in a spell.

A revival of the Royal Ballet’s venerable production of The Sleeping Beauty runs on and off until June. At the performance I saw, the role of Aurora was taken by Francesca Hayward. Perhaps other ballerinas in the company – Marianela Nunez or Yasmine Naghdi, for example – can draw on more steely technique and deliver more diamond precision and polish. Hayward will never be a dazzler. Her ‘Rose Adagio’ was tense and despite exemplary partnering by her Prince, Alexander Campbell, her phrasing of the final pas de deux was short on regal grandeur. But her dancing and personality radiate a warm gentle glow, sapphire and ruby in hue, and in the ‘Vision Scene’ she was pure enchantment.

The remainder of the cast was of variable quality. Claire Calvert was a humanely gracious Lilac Fairy and Itziar Mendizabal cackled chillingly as Carabosse (though my preference in this pantomime role is for a male en travesti). The Bluebirds, Melissa Hamilton and Calvin Richardson, and the troupe of christening fairies were only so-so, but the corps was immaculate. Although Oliver Messel’s designs have done noble service, after 77 years they are inevitably getting tired – all the green and brown in the backcloths looks sludgy, the drop curtain is powder-puff twee and there’s scant magic in the lighting or special effects. In the orchestra, there was too much careless brass playing: Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece deserves better, and I hope conductor Koen Kessels gave the culprits what for. The show is a lovely treat nevertheless and palpably gave a capacity audience much pleasure.