dance
Der Fensterputzer, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler’s WellsTuesday, 19 June 2012
It may be that designer Peter Pabst is the unsung hero of Tanztheater Wuppertal’s “World Cities” extravaganza. When the lights go down at Sadler’s Wells for Der Fensterputzer (The Window-washer), the stage is dominated by a vast mountain of glowing red flowers, over four metres high, nine metres across, looming out of a modernistic black-box stage. It is a moment of pure, surging drama. Read more... |
Ten Chi, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican TheatreMonday, 18 June 2012
The Japanese dance public is overwhelmingly female, so it’s not surprising that Pina Bausch’s paean to Saitama, Ten Chi, is so girly. Read more... |
South Bank Show: The Male Dancer, Sky Arts 1Monday, 18 June 2012
Male dancers are a puzzle to British audiences, where they are an uncomplicated, taken-for-granted treasure in Latin or Slav countries. I point this out gratuitously, as it's a point that wasn't touched upon by Melvyn Bragg's film about three iconic men of ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Carlos Acosta. Read more... |
...Como El Musguito..., Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 13 June 2012
If you are tired of life, tired of London, or even tired of love, muster the remaining fibres of your frazzled being and do whatever it takes to get tickets for ...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si... or any of the other performances in the Pina Bausch "World Cities" retrospective on at Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican over the next four weeks. Read more... |
Nur Du, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican TheatreMonday, 11 June 2012
Many people will be having their first taste of the late Pina Bausch’s dance-theatre in this copious London retrospective of 10 of her “World City” productions; others will have bought into several of the series, possibly by now wondering how many hours they can take of her barbed view of men and women. For all of us, reading programme notes is beside the point; the background you need is what’s inside you, your memories, your songs, your susceptibilities. Read more... |
Viktor, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's WellsThursday, 07 June 2012
It stymies any tourist to sum up for others what they saw abroad. Still more challenging, to create (or recreate) for theatre as a choreographer something more than superficial, more than clichéd about Italy, Japan, Los Angeles, Istanbul, these most clichéd of cultures. Read more... |
The Prince of the Pagodas, The Royal BalletSunday, 03 June 2012
As Mrs Thatcher used to say, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions. Solutions have been flung with a will at the problem ballet of Kenneth MacMillan’s last years, his orientalist fairytale The Prince of the Pagodas - the Royal Ballet’s retiring director Monica Mason revived it last night as one of her last presentations, determined that a new generation should have the chance to love it. Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Early Adventures, Richmond TheatreSaturday, 02 June 2012
Matthew Bourne’s charm is a rare and cheering thing in the world of dance - a night out with three of his earliest works, Spitfire, Town & Country and The Infernal Galop, is akin to sitting down to watch Father Ted or Dad’s Army. It’s clever, often witty, always gay, and kind. Read more... |
Ballo della Regina/ La Sylphide, Royal BalletTuesday, 22 May 2012
Ballo della Regina is a strange piece, for many reasons. A piece of minor Balanchine, it was created late in life for a dancer he clearly admired but who was not core to his vision. Strangest of all, he used music by Verdi, a composer whose music he had only choreographed to in his very early days as a journeyman opera-house ballet-master, when he did not get to choose. Read more... |
Rambert: Sub/ The Art of Touch/ Nijinsky's Faune/ What Wild Ecstasy, Sadler's WellsThursday, 17 May 2012
The past is a hard card to play for a contemporary dance company, even harder than for a ballet company. A work that’s proved over time, whose quality emerges and re-emerges with revisiting, casts an imposing shadow over new works created in the ethos and fashions of the contemporary. Read more... |
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