dance
Palermo, Palermo review - free to view PinaMonday, 20 April 2020
It starts with an almighty boom. Without warning, a breeze-block wall that spans the width of the stage collapses into billowing clouds of dust. As the air clears, we see a stage strewn with rubble, and picking her way determinedly through it blonde Julie Shanahan, shod – as are all Pina Bausch's women – in high heels, absurdly impractical for walking, for dancing, or even for standing still. Read more... |
Rumpelstiltskin, Sadler's Wells Digital Stage review - spins an engaging yarn for young audiencesMonday, 06 April 2020
The latest in Sadler’s Wells’ Digital Stage programme – an impressively assembled online offering to keep audiences entertained during the shutdown – is balletLORENT’s family-friendly dance-theatre production Rumpelstiltskin. It was streamed as a "matinee" on Friday afternoon, and is avail Read more... |
Richard Alston Dance Company, Final Edition, Sadler's Wells review - farewell and thank you, Sir RichardTuesday, 10 March 2020
Hard as it is to imagine the British dance landscape without Richard Alston, we’re going to have to get used to it. Read more... |
Isadora Now, Barbican Theatre review - a little piece of historyThursday, 27 February 2020
Mention Isadora Duncan and the best response you’re likely to get is “Wasn’t she that dancer who died when her scarf got caught in the wheels of a Bugatti?” The closing scene of the 1968 biopic starring Vanessa Redgrave seems to have blotted out everything Duncan actually achieved. Read more... |
Alina, Sadler's Wells review - I think therefore I danceTuesday, 25 February 2020
It’s common to see the term “vanity project” applied to self-produced shows by ballet stars, but Alina – the first such London venture by Alina Cojocaru – was quite the opposite of vain. Read more... |
Message in a Bottle, Peacock Theatre review - a hiphop singalongSaturday, 22 February 2020
It’s hard enough to imagine hip hop set to the songs of Sting, but a hip hop show in which 27 songs by Sting laid end to end are made to tell a story about refugees? That’s the unlikely latest offering from the choreographer Kate Prince. Read more... |
The Cellist/Dances at a Gathering, Royal Ballet review - A grand love affair with a celloWednesday, 19 February 2020
The cello is the stringed instrument most closely aligned to the human voice. It has a human shape, too, so in theory it was a short step for choreographer Cathy Marston to give it a living, breathing presence in her ballet about the legendary cellist Jacqueline du Pré. But what a giant leap of imagination that turned out to be. Read more... |
Bluebeard, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - bleak but ground-breakingFriday, 14 February 2020
When Pina Bausch died at the height of her creative powers in 2009, no one knew if her work or her company would survive. A decade later, to judge by the scramble for tickets for this early, highly experimental piece, both seem to be doing just fine. Read more... |
Michael Keegan-Dolan, MÁM, Sadler's Wells review - folk goes radicalWednesday, 12 February 2020
The Dingle Peninsula is a thumb of land that protrudes into the Atlantic as if trying to hitch a ride from Ireland to America. Read more... |
English National Ballet 70th Anniversary Gala, Coliseum review - a fine celebrationTuesday, 21 January 2020
Just when you thought Christmas was well and truly over, along comes another box of delights. And there isn’t a disappointment in it. If it were nuts, there’d be nothing but cashews; if chocolates, there wouldn’t be a single disgusting lime-cream. It would be all Ferrero Rochers, gift-wrapped. English National Ballet’s 70th birthday party opened and closed with class, in every sense. Read more... |
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