dance

Crystal Pite, Flight Pattern, Royal Ballet

Hanna Weibye Friday, 17 March 2017

Can thirty minutes of contemporary ballet say something meaningful about the modern refugee crisis? It has been the surprise of the season to find myself asking this question not once, but twice, at the Royal Ballet.

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Project Polunin, Sadler's Wells

Katie Colombus Wednesday, 15 March 2017

This is the comeback after the comeback-that-never-was. It's the anticipated full stage ballet after the hugely popular Youtube video. It's the press waiting to see if ballet's bad boy will do something wild. It's the fans waiting to see if Sergei Polunin really will be the second coming (he's often hailed as the modern day Nureyev). Pamela Anderson is in the audience.

Tree of Codes, Wayne McGregor, Sadler's Wells

Katie Colombus Wednesday, 08 March 2017

Tree of Codes is a work made from a work made from a work.

FLA.CO.MEN, Israel Galván, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Saturday, 18 February 2017

Before this Sadler's Wells Flamenco Festival-opening performance of Israel Galván's show FLA.CO.MEN, my guest wanted to know what the show would be like.

Masurca Fogo, Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Friday, 10 February 2017

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch are at an interesting juncture. Eight years after their eponymous founder died, and over 40 since she took over at Wuppertal, the troupe is reaching a point when, even if Bausch were alive, it would be facing change, as the older dancers in the company - many of whom have been there since the beginning - enter their late 60s.

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Giselle, English National Ballet, London Coliseum

Hanna Weibye Thursday, 12 January 2017

In the annals of ballet directors, always searching for the perfect balance between heritage programming and new work, there can rarely have been a double whammy so successful.

Best of 2016: Dance & Ballet

Hanna Weibye Monday, 26 December 2016

The criteria used by theartsdesk's critics in selecting pieces for this list are simple, but demanding: did a piece or a programme stir and shake us? Did it move us, and make us still - weeks or months afterwards - think, yes, I'd go see that again in a heartbeat?

Strictly Come Dancing 2016 Final, BBC One

Jasper Rees Sunday, 18 December 2016

What is light entertainment for? It won’t save the world or heal the sick or bring warring factions to the negotiating table. It’s teeth and smiles and bread and circuses on a Saturday night and it shouldn’t have to bear any greater weight. The Generation Game was never required to offer vital balm during the Three-Day Week. Barrymore didn’t nurse us all through Black Wednesday and Britain’s exit from the ERM.

The Red Shoes, Sadler's Wells

Jenny Gilbert Friday, 16 December 2016

Anyone expecting a knockout punch from Matthew Bourne’s latest creation is in for a let-down. His hotly anticipated take on Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film, unlike his Swan Lake, is not going to send anyone out into the night weeping into their hankie. Nor is it likely to turn unbelievers into ballet fans, and yet it is probably his best piece of work to date.

Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, Sadler’s Wells

Jenny Gilbert Monday, 28 November 2016

Booking a ticket for a show devised by Michael Keegan-Dolan has always required an act of faith, and this is no exception. ‘If I say this is a house, it’s a house,” says the evening’s laconic compere, Mikel Murfi, gesturing with his cigarette to three breeze blocks on the floor. And if Keegan-Dolan says this is Swan Lake you’d better believe it and brace yourself for wrenching tragedy.