Harlem Dance Theatre, Sadler's Wells, London

James Brown steps out

Robert Garland's piece Return, an inspired dance interpretation of terrific recordings by James Brown and Aretha Franklin, is one of the liveliest and most enjoyable new ballets to reach London in quite a time. It forms the climax of the Harlem Dance Theatre's second programme for the British tour.

What a pleasure it is to be introduced to a gifted new choreographer. Like Garland's New Bach on opening night, Return shows the dancers rewardingly in a mixture of classical style and modern twists, but this time with a different balance.

In Brown's song "Super Bad" Donald Williams delivers a perfect smiling imitation of a hip-swinging rock star, going straight into that from an impressive series of showpiece pirouettes; others among the men mingle ballet steps and breakdance virtuosity. Tai Jimenez switches from partner to partner in a neat send-up of classic adagio to Franklin's "Baby, Baby, Baby", and Paunika Jones starts the whole thing exuberantly shimmying to "Mother Popcorn".

The 13-strong cast deserves individual praise if space allowed, and I was left wanting to see the ballet again straight away if only the season hadn't been sold out. That was true, too, of the other new work on the bill, South African Suite. This had three choreographers, artistic director Arthur Mitchell, ballet master Augustus van Heerden and school director Laveen Naidu, but they don't say who did which bits. Never mind; it all looks of a piece, inspired by the company's 1992 South African tour, and transforming African imagery into an international style, just as the Soweto String Quartet do in their pieces "Eureka" and "Mlibe KwaZulu", which form part of the score.

As in Return, the structure is a series of individual numbers, eight in all, yet passing so quickly that at the end you might easily want more. Among the images they evoke are Zulu warriors with imaginary spears, and animals (Caroline Rocher at one moment goes unexpectedly to all fours on full point – clever). There are also dances with no narrative content, only the relationships of the dancers to each other and the music.

Highlights include a duet for Kellye A. Saunders and James Washington that ends with her carried offstage, spectacularly upside down above his head.

Linking the two modern works is one of Harlem's long-time audience-pleasers, Dougla, in which the superimposed sun and moon projected on the backdrop symbolise its slight theme of arranging and celebrating a wedding. Geoffrey Holder drew on the mixed African and Hindu traditions of his West Indian background to create the soundtrack and the colourful costumes of this spectacle as well as its sometimes acrobatic, generally emphatic choreography, which the cast delivers with a fine flourish.