dance
Voces, Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's WellsFriday, 19 February 2016
Claims to embody the spirit of flamenco, or to be born with flamenco in one's blood, abound in the programme of the annual Sadler's Wells flamenco festival. Sara Baras, whose show Voces opened the two week festival on Tuesday, doesn't make such a claim in writing: she doesn't need to. Read more... |
Wheeldon Triple Bill, Royal BalletSaturday, 13 February 2016
Christopher Wheeldon's new ballet Strapless scores a first on a number of counts. It’s the first co-production between the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi (London gets first dibs – Moscow doesn’t get the goods for another 12 months). It forms part of the first ever triple bill the Royal Ballet has devoted to its most famous son. It’s the first ballet music Mark-Anthony Turnage has written to order. Read more... |
The Odyssey, Mark Bruce Company, Circomedia, BristolSaturday, 13 February 2016
Mark Bruce did very well with his last dance theatre production Dracula, but this time around he has reached a little too far. Read more... |
"...como el musguito...", Pina Bausch, Sadler's WellsFriday, 12 February 2016
Sitting near the front at a Pina Bausch piece always provokes anxiety. Read more... |
The Return, Circa, BarbicanFriday, 29 January 2016
If you thought circus acrobats and Shostakovich were a daring combination, try circus acrobats and Monteverdi. While the spiky harmonies and vivd dynamics of 20th-century Russian string quartets sit pretty nicely with circus show-offery, surely Baroque music, with its steady continuo basses, its measured rise and fall, is a world away from tumbling tricks and strongman stunts? Read more... |
Rhapsody/The Two Pigeons, Royal BalletMonday, 18 January 2016
Perhaps the director of the Royal Ballet is a pigeon fancier? Read more... |
Le Corsaire, English National Ballet, ColiseumThursday, 14 January 2016
It’s being sold as the ideal ballet for first-timers, but I would blush to introduce even my neighbour’s cat to this Carry On Up the Harem hokum. Worse, its silliness verges on offensive. When, in Rudolph Nureyev’s 1990s production of La Bayadère for Paris Opera Ballet, a chorus of blacked-up picaninnies appeared for about three minutes, you blinked and put it down to an unwise attempt at historical accuracy. Read more... |
Until the Lions, Akram Khan, RoundhouseWednesday, 13 January 2016
As its first gift to dance fans, the new year has delivered not one but two chamber pieces about extraordinary women. Down in Covent Garden this week, Will Tuckett's Elizabeth for Royal Ballet dancers is exploring the life and loves of Queen Elizabeth I, while up in Camden Akram Khan's Until the Lions takes a fresh look at the story of princess Amba, from the Indian classical epic the Mahabharata. Read more... |
Elizabeth, Royal BalletSunday, 10 January 2016
Please, sir, I want some more. Will Tuckett and Alasdair Middleton's Elizabeth is soul food for the hungry dance fan; an ingenious blend of words, music and dance that beguiles and entertains in equal measure. Read more... |
Cinderella, Scottish Ballet, Edinburgh Festival TheatreThursday, 07 January 2016
When producing Cinderella, the main question is: sweet or sour? That Prokofiev score is splendid, but it's no walk in a candy shop; in Act I the stepsisters have passages so scraping, spiky and dissonant that sugar-coating would seem to be out of the question. Read more... |
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