dance
UnDance, Mark-Anthony Turnage/Wayne McGregor/Mark Wallinger, Sadler’s WellsFriday, 02 December 2011
It is unusual in art for collaborators to be of equal star-wattage. The pairing of Benjamin Britten and WH Auden was one such. Another, much longer-lasting, was Stravinsky and Balanchine, a partnership of equals that endured for nearly half a century. More recently, Antony Gormley has worked with both Akram Khan and Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, to great effect. Read more... |
Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker & Jérôme Bel, 3Abschied, Sadler’s WellsTuesday, 22 November 2011
When the subject of funding for the arts arises, the phrase “allowed to fail” is frequently heard: artists must be enabled to try new things, press against the outer edges of what they know. Enter Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Jérôme Bel, two of contemporary dance’s thinkers. They have tried, and failed, to choreograph the final section of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, and in that attempt, they have produced an extraordinary evening: the anatomy of a failure. Read more... |
Royal Ballet, Asphodel Meadows/Enigma Variations/GloriaSunday, 20 November 2011
“Over the top” is a curious expression. Originating in World War One, to mean going over the edge of a trench and into battle, it has altered by degrees to mean anything extravagant or outrageous. And Gloria, which is arguably Kenneth MacMillan’s masterpiece, has both the literal and figurative meanings of going over the top layered upon each other. Read more... |
Rambert: RainForest/ Seven For A Secret/ Elysian Fields, Sadler’s WellsWednesday, 16 November 2011
Rambert is making a thing of acquiring classic works from the 20th-century contemporary repertory – and a very good thing, too. First staged by them last year, RainForest, a minor Merce Cunningham piece from 1968, was recently performed by the Cunningham company itself, in London on its final tour. And yet, while that performance was straight from the horse’s mouth, I think Rambert (whisper it) in reality do it better. Read more... |
Can We Talk About This?, DV8 Physical Theatre, Warwick Arts CentreThursday, 10 November 2011
Some of the bravest people in theatre operate in the dance world. Lloyd Newson’s new DV8 production, Can We Talk About This?, tackles just as contentious and satirically explosive a subject as Javier de Frutos did in Eternal Damnation to Sancho and Sanchez, the luridly anti-Papist work that got him death threats and a BBC ban in 2009. Read more... |
Manon, Royal BalletWednesday, 09 November 2011
Manon is the planet around which a series of moons orbit, locked in place by her gravitational pull. There is Des Grieux, who gives up his seminary studies for nights of pleasure; there is her brother Lescaut, who translates her into cash; and there is Monsieur GM, the aristocrat who wants her body, both to possess it and to display it. They all see her as an object of desire, and their desires set the plot in motion, spinning ultimately to destruction. Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, Royal BalletTuesday, 01 November 2011
The Sleeping Beauty was the ballet that kissed the then Sadler’s Wells Ballet into stardom in 1946; after a string of poorly conceived Beauty productions, today’s Royal Ballet hurtled back 60 years in 2006 to try to recapture some of that historic Forties magic in its current staging of this most awesome and enchanting of the classical ballets. Read more... |
Some Like It Hip Hop, ZooNation, Peacock TheatreThursday, 27 October 2011
The title is a warning, as is the cheesy grinning poster - this is going to be Fun with a capital F, and Feel-good too, and Family Friendly. And it is going to clean up hip hop’s badass image. I was already prejudiced against it before I sat down. Read more... |
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre, Rian, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 25 October 2011
Wallets have been emptied by the proliferation of outstanding dance evenings in the past month - Akram Khan’s Desh, Lucinda Childs, the Merce Cunningham farewell - but increase your overdraft, for here is a heart-lifting and ingeniously ingenuous Irish dance night from Michael Keegan-Dolan and Liam Ó Maonlaí that could beat all for pure delight. Read more... |
La Fille Mal Gardée, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's WellsFriday, 21 October 2011
It may be that there is no sunnier place than Ashton’s La fille mal gardée. Certainly there is no sunnier ballet. It speaks not of great drama, nor ecstasy, but instead of gentle happiness, of quiet content and loving kindness. Not, one might think, the stuff of great art. But one would be – one is – wrong, and Ashton is happy to set us straight. Read more... |
Pages
latest in today
London Tide, National Theatre review - haunting moody river...
“He do the police in different voices.” If ever one phrase summed up a work of fiction, and the art of its writer, then surely it is this...
The Songs of Joni Mitchell, The Roundhouse review - fans (ol...
For most people’s 40th birthday celebrations, they might get a few...
Jonathan Pie, Duke of York's Theatre review - spoof pol...
If you don't like sweary comics – Jonathan Pie uses the c-word liberally – then this may not be the show for you. In fact if you're a Tory, ditto...
Baby Reindeer, Netflix review - a misery memoir disturbingly...
Richard Gadd won an Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2016 with...
Machinal, The Old Vic review - note-perfect pity and terror
Virtuosity and a wildly beating heart are compatible in Richard Jones’s finely calibrated production of Renaissance woman Sophie Treadwell’s ...
Fantastic Machine review - photography's story from one...
The first photograph was taken nearly 200 years ago in France by Joseph Niépce, and the first picture of a person was taken in Paris by Louis...
Simon Boccanegra, Hallé, Elder, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester...
If ever more evidence were needed of Sir Mark Elder’s untiring zest for exploration and love of the thrill of live opera performance, it was this...
All You Need Is Death review - a future folk horror classic
Music, when the singer’s voice dies away, vibrates in the memory. In the hypnotic new Irish horror film All You Need Is Death, those who...
Album: Jonny Drop • Andrew Ashong - The Puzzle Dust
As I sat down to write this review, the sun came out. It was a salutory reminder of the importance of context: where I’d previously thought “mmm,...
theartsdesk on Vinyl: Record Store Day Special 2024
Record Store Day is tomorrow! At theartsdesk on Vinyl...