D ickson Mbi won an Olivier award for his last major dance piece, Enowate , a result that surprised some of us who saw a talented artist still mastering the craft of choreographing a full-length work. But his new one, Tellus, is a much more sure and expressive work that creates a confident, textured world. Plus, Mbi is now not only a choreographer, but also a composer – a skill he honed during the pandemic – and the score is an essential part of the choreography (there are musicians on stage behind the eight performers), full of haunting melody and emotional pull. The music effectively shapes and enhances the action and speaks with the dance.

Rousing … Hannah Joseph (centre) in Tellus by Dickson Mbi at Sadler’s Wells East, London. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

Tellus is a kind of folk tale about finding hope in a world that’s in environmental turmoil.…