dance
Bon Voyage, Bob, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - interminable ennuiTuesday, 26 February 2019![]()
It's a decade since Pina Bausch sadly died, and during that time her company has kept her memory alive by revisiting her amazingly rich legacy. Inevitably, though, the time would come for them to embark on a new phase; but how? Read more...
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The Rite of Spring/Gianni Schicchi, Opera North review - unlikely but musically satisfying pairingSunday, 17 February 2019![]()
Stravinsky acknowledged that his orchestra for The Rite of Spring was a large one because Diaghilev had promised him extra musicians (“I am not sure that my orchestra would have been as huge otherwise.”) It isn’t huge in Opera North’s production (★★★★★), and for practical reasons they're using the edition arranged by Jonathan McPhee in 1988 for a standard pit band. Read more... |
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, London Coliseum review - a solid, go-to productionFriday, 04 January 2019![]()
Diversity, and the need for more of it, is a hot potato in the theatre arts. Kudos, then, to English National Ballet and its director Tamara Rojo for the 23 nationalities represented within its ranks. Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Sadler's Wells - vivid, enchantingSaturday, 15 December 2018![]()
The Matthew Bourne Swan Lake has become a classic. And – lest that word conjure up dusty tomes and a niggling sense of obligation – this is definitively not the old-but-worthy, improving-but-dull kind of classic. Read more... |
The Nutcracker, Royal Ballet review - a still-magical tale of two couplesTuesday, 04 December 2018![]()
Once a year is never too often to revisit one of the most perfect of all orchestral scores (not just for the ballet), a climactic Russian Imperial Pas de deux and the old-fashioned magic of illusionist painted flats flying in and out across a production/choreography that manages to crack the soft nut of a fantastical story only a quarter told. Read more... |
The Unknown Soldier, Infra, Symphony in C, Royal Ballet, review - WWI ballet honours obscure tragedyWednesday, 21 November 2018![]()
Pity fatigue is a risk for any artwork marking the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice. There can’t have been a man or woman in the Royal Opera House on Tuesday night who hadn’t already read, watched, or otherwise had their fill of the horrors of the Western Front and the never-ending debate over the futility of it all. Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, London Coliseum review - a triumph for English National BalletThursday, 07 June 2018![]()
When Tamara Rojo won the top job at English National Ballet in 2012, it looked like a poisoned chalice. Directors had come and gone, some of them with visionary ideas, but all were defeated by the company’s peculiar position as underdog to the company at Covent Garden. Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal Ballet review - beautiful, heartfeltSaturday, 19 May 2018![]()
A new Swan Lake at the Royal Ballet is a once-in-a-generation event. Read more... |
Elizabeth, Barbican review - royal romance under scrutinyThursday, 17 May 2018![]()
Everyone knows that Elizabeth I was a monarch of deep intelligence and sharp wit. Fewer know how good she was at the galliard. This was a virile, proud, demandingly athletic dance, usually performed by the men at courtly gatherings, and the fact that the Queen of England so enthusiastically flouted convention in this way says a lot about her. Read more... |
Unbound: A Festival of New Works, War Memorial Opera House, San Francisco review - ballet invests in its futureMonday, 14 May 2018![]()
You have to hand it to the Americans: they think big. Where the Royal Ballet or ENB might put on three or four new works in the course of a season – because commissions are wildly expensive and a box office risk – San Francisco Ballet has just presented a dozen in the space of two weeks. What’s more, the 12 invited choreographers – four of them Brits or British trained – were given virtually carte blanche to create whatever they liked. Read more... |
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