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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