thu 17/07/2025

dance

Manon, Royal Opera House review - splendid start to the season

Jenny Gilbert

The Royal Ballet’s choice of season opener could be dismissed as safe and predictable. But as the glorious naturalistic detail of 1830s Paris unfolds in Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 retelling, you see the reasoning. It’s only a year since the Royal Opera House remodelled its ground floor spaces to be more welcoming, and Manon is the ideal first-time ballet.

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Redd, Barbican Theatre review - hip hop gets the blues

Jenny Gilbert

There was a time when hip hop in a theatre was all about showing off. It was about dancers spinning on their head or their elbow so fast and for so long that the audience gaped in disbelief. Although it had long ago migrated from the concrete stairwells of inner city estates, the culture remained rooted in the idea of a battle, a dance-off, a show of virtuosity.

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Alvin Ailey, Programme C review - black, beautiful, brilliant

Jenny Gilbert

The Ailey company is that rare thing – a dance legend that’s even better than you remember.

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Sadler's Wells review - Still more Revelations

Jenny Gilbert

There is no equivalent of the Ailey phenomenon. This is a modern dance company with a New York square named after it. It’s a dance company that has performed at the inauguration of two presidents.

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Matthew Bourne's Romeo and Juliet, Sadler's Wells review - heart-stopping drama

Hanna Weibye

Your first thought on hearing there's a new Matthew Bourne Romeo and Juliet might well be 'doesn't it exist already?' So obvious does this marriage of high drama, lush iconic score, and Britain's premier dance maker seem that you might well be forgiven for assuming it had happened years...

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The Bright Stream, Bolshoi Ballet review - a gem of a comedy

Hanna Weibye

Why is Alexei Ratmansky one of the greatest living choreographers of classical ballet?

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Spartacus, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House review - no other company could pull this off

Hanna Weibye

The Bolshoi juggernaut has rolled into town and will be dominating the thoughts of ballet fans in and around the capital for the next three weeks. And what could be more dominating - or more quintessentially Bolshoi - than Yuri Grigorovitch's 1968 Spartacus?

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Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's Wells review - storming opening to flamenco festival

Jenny Gilbert

Crowned queen of the percussive heel and the trouser suit, Sara Baras has the audience on its feet long before the final number of her show Sombras (Shadows). The Spanish superstar is a familiar presence at Sadler’s Wells, having fronted its annual two-week flamenco festival several times before. She’s a natural headliner with her big, glossy theatrics. Her current offering, though, is a thing of deep contrasts: light and dark, sound and silence, conviviality and yes, loneliness.

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Mari review - bittersweet drama with flair

Owen Richards

Mari is one part kitchen sink drama, one part dance performance, bringing a refreshing take on bereavement and family.

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The Mother, QEH review - Natalia goes psycho

Jenny Gilbert

The publicity said it would be dark. But who would have guessed The Mother would be this dark?

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