Dance
Jenny Gilbert
You’re already in the land of the unpredictable with Pina Bausch. Creating unease was her métier. But when she pulls a gag intended to convince you that something has gone badly wrong on stage, and then it really does, the discombobulation is profound.When stage hands brought on a portable ballet barre, some 110 minutes into Thursday night’s opening performance of Ahnen (German for “ancestors”, but also “foreboding”), a few hearts among the Sadler’s Wells audience may have leapt: ah, at last, they thought, we’re going to get something more like dance. But the barre was a trapeze for Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Lest the BBC Four imprint prove not strong enough a signal, I'll say it loud and clear: don't go into this expecting Strictly, kids. On the evidence of last night's contemporary dance showdown, the first of four section finals, the brand new BBC Young Dancer competition is light years from the razzmatazz, sparkling scoreboards and celebrity judge infighting of the BBC One dance flagship.The first minutes offered the briefest sketch of contemporary dance's history and a couple of major choreographers as talking heads: distinctly more documentary than docu-soap. The ever-thoughtful and Read more ...
Jenny Gilbert
In 1803 they called it Filly me Gardy. Today British ballet lovers refer to it by a single coded syllable: “Fee”. But translating its title is, for audiences at least, the only hard thing about this three-act romcom by Frederick Ashton. The rest is pure pleasure, and pure Englishness, in what must be the happiest work in the repertoire.The sugar-averse may wish the choreographer had done without the (real) Shetland pony and (human) chorus line of chickens. Discovering that Ashton's cockerel was doing the John Cleese walk 20 years before John Cleese doesn’t mitigate the feeling that it’s not Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Retrospectives are difficult in dance, and for Pina Bausch's brand of Tanztheater, even more difficult. A great deal of her oeuvre's impact derives from the special atmosphere of her Wuppertal company, whose dancers were devoted to her and to each other, in many cases staying for their whole careers. After Bausch died in 2009, the first thought was that the company would have to wind down too, but after the great, supposedly final, tour of 2012, minds changed and now Tanztheater Wuppertal is back at Sadler's for the third time in as many years, this time with two pieces never before performed Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Diana Vishneva's last solo show was called Beauty in Motion, a pretty safe bet under the Trade Descriptions Act, since the Mariinsky prima ballerina and ABT guest star is unfailingly, remarkably beautiful. The new one, which came to the Coliseum last night 18 months after its première in California, rejoices in the much more ambiguous title of On the Edge. On the edge of what? Nervous breakdown? Retirement? Being less than beautiful? Having seen the show, I'm no more enlightened. Switch, by Jean-Christophe Maillot, Director of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo, is an odd beast, a psychological Read more ...
Marianka Swain
From Singin’ in the Rain and Anything Goes to Hello, Dolly! and Mary Poppins, Olivier Award winner Stephen Mear has done more than any other British choreographer to usher classic musicals into the modern era. But adept as he is at razzle-dazzling ’em, there’s more to Mear, as recent excursions like City of Angels at Donmar Warehouse and Die Fledermaus for the Metropolitan Opera prove. His contribution to the lauded Gypsy revival, opening next week at the Savoy Theatre following a triumphant Chichester run, demonstrates the combination of emotional engagement and quick-witted Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Your mum told you (or at least, I hope someone did) that it wasn't about being pretty, it was about having personality. True wisdom though this is, you probably also noticed that there are some jobs where it appears to be necessary to conform to a certain model of style or appearance. Playing the princess roles in ballet is one of these, though it's not about prettiness: for practical reasons you have to be shorter and considerably lighter than the men who will partner you. Tall ballerinas do become principals, but, especially in smaller companies, they don't often get to dance the Auroras Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
After the second piece of last night's triple bill, Hofesh Shechter's Untouchable in its world premiere, my friend asked me why it had been put on the programme with the first piece, George Balanchines 1946 Four Temperaments. He wondered if there was some structural or thematic connection that he had missed between the two wildly different pieces. The Balanchine speaks obviously to the bill's last item, Kenneth MacMillan's 1966 Song of the Earth; both pair a cool neoclassical choreographic idiom with deeply felt but vaguely expressed melancholy. But the best I reason I can imagine for the new Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
The premise of last night’s world première made so much sense that one almost wondered why nobody had done it before now. Commissioned by the Royal Opera House and in its downstairs Linbury space, Shobana Jeyasingh, a classically-trained Indian dancer and now director of her own contemporary dance company, would respond to the 19th-century ballet about an Indian temple dancer, La Bayadère, which has wonderful choreography but presents an entirely Western, Orientalist vision of the “exotic” east. Issues of cultural appropriation, objectification and identity would be tackled, dance would get Read more ...
judith.flanders
Serenade seems to be one of George Balanchine’s most evanescent works, a floating, delicate skein of movement that is over almost before it begins, leaving nothing but memory behind. In reality, it is tough as old boots, a warrior of a ballet, one that endures, survives – and enchants over and over.It is, perhaps, a dandelion – one puff, and the wind disperses the seeds on the breeze, and yet like all weeds, it renews itself, finding new roots, as Serenade itself does new audiences. And Birmingham Royal Ballet’s return in this piece is always welcome. BRB has made Balanchine a focus of their Read more ...
Matthew Wright
Even for a dancer of Akram Khan’s sublime gifts, “Now” is an evasive concept to convey. During last night’s Sadler’s Wells extravaganza of Azerbaijani jazz and contemporary dance, “The Pursuit of Now”, Khan and his co-performer, the German-Korean dancer Honji Wang, mesmerised in a series of vignettes, gorgeously choreographed and lit. Azeri pianist Shahin Novrasli, whose ensembles’ charismatic folk-jazz comprised far more of the programme than the dance, offered a compelling snapshot of the Azeri music scene, beautifully positioned between Eastern and Western traditions. In the end, though, Read more ...
Hanna Weibye
Reviews of English National Ballet in which I rave about what Tamara Rojo is doing for the company are getting to be the norm round here. This one is no exception, and I'm not even going to apologise for it. Last night was the opening of Modern Masters, an ambitious new bill in which the company more than prove they're up to handling the big beasts of late twentieth-century choreography. It took place not at the Coliseum, but at Sadler's Wells, the home of exciting contemporary dance programming in London, and a new partner venue for ENB in what looks like a very savvy deal for Read more ...