dance
Michael Clark Company, Barbican Theatre review - bad boy of dance comes goodSaturday, 21 October 2017
If there were an arts award for loyalty, the Barbican Theatre would surely win it for having kept faith with Michael Clark. It’s no secret that the bad-boy image that has clung to Clark since his punk extravaganzas in the 1980s had consequences in his personal and creative life, forcing frequent "early retirements". Read more... |
Kenneth MacMillan, Royal Opera House review - a sprite proves mercilessFriday, 20 October 2017
There are different ways of celebrating a great artist’s legacy, and I suppose they have to coexist. One approach is raptly to admire his or her acknowledged masterpieces, the equivalent of making straight for Guernica or the Mona Lisa. Read more... |
A Celebration of Sir Kenneth MacMillan, Northern Ballet review - a brave and worthy tributeSaturday, 14 October 2017
Northern Ballet do a challenging job really well: on a mid-scale touring company budget and doing all the things mid-scale touring companies have to do (tour, obviously, but also outreach and audience-building and Christmas ballets for children), they manage to create a constant stream of new work, and have built up a real competence in storytelling on stage. Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal Ballet review - a feast of visual delightsThursday, 28 September 2017
I can imagine Monica Mason, the artistic director who commissioned Christopher Wheeldon's 2011 Alice, feeling pretty pleased with herself as she looked around the Covent Garden auditorium last night at an audience buzzing with excitement for the first performance of... Read more... |
Akram Khan's Giselle, Sadler's Wells review - the migrant crisis in a ballet thrillerThursday, 21 September 2017
Of the many good reasons for seeing Akram Khan’s 2016 remake of Giselle – his work is often a headline event, for one – the most compelling is the company performing it. English National Ballet used to be the poor relation of its plusher sister national flagship in WC2. Not any more. Read more... |
La Bayadère, Mariinsky Ballet review - a parade of delightsSaturday, 12 August 2017
There are half as many performances of La Bayadère in this Mariinsky tour as performances of Swan Lake (four vs eight). Read more... |
Contrasts, Mariinsky Ballet review - company shows off range of its powersThursday, 10 August 2017
There are two approaches to a triple bill: make all three pieces similar so you get one crowd with definite tastes, or make them very different so you have a chance of pleasing everyone. The Contrasts bill that the Mariinsky ballet showed at the Royal Opera House was, as its title suggests, firmly in the latter camp. Read more... |
Swan Lake, Mariinsky Ballet review - Xander Parish lacks the spark of wildfireFriday, 28 July 2017
It's a Cinderella story: Xander Parish was plucked from obscurity in the Royal Ballet corps and trained by the Mariinsky to dance the greatest roles in the repertoire. Read more... |
Don Quixote, Mariinsky Ballet review - gentle charm, impressive principalsTuesday, 25 July 2017
One of the most Russian things you can do in ballet is dance Don Quixote, which is 100 percent set in Spain. Don't think too hard about it, and definitely don't think too hard about the plot (which is barely there). Read more... |
Scottish Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - striking and memorable danceFriday, 09 June 2017
Years ago, MC14/22 (Ceci est mon corps), the Angelin Preljoçaj piece with which this Scottish Ballet double bill opens, made a deep impression on Christopher Hampson. Read more... |
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