Dance
Compagnie Ieto, LIMF, Purcell RoomThursday, 28 January 2010![]() Compagnie Ieto are two modest Frenchmen with immodest circus skills - modesty in all the right proportions. Jonathan Guichard and Fnico Feldmann teamed up in 2006 and were finalists in the 2008 Jeunes Talents Cirque with this show Ieto, last night's... Read more... |
Giselle & Men Y Men, English National Ballet, ColiseumFriday, 22 January 2010![]() It's a short run, in London, but a sweet one. At the Coliseum, English National Ballet's revival of a 1971 Giselle is a showcase for a company on exceptionally calibrated form, offering audiences a taste of its myriad talent over six more shows... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Royal BalletWednesday, 13 January 2010![]() There are times when critics sheathe their quill tips, others when they don’t. Rupert Pennefather, the tall blond Englishman who has been earnestly promoted by the Royal Ballet as hard as they can to be the next Jonathan Cope, has attracted some... Read more... |
The Snow Queen, English National Ballet, London ColiseumFriday, 08 January 2010![]() If your heart feels frozen while the ice glitters outside, warm it by reading Hans Christian Andersen's sharp, witty and enchanting fairy-tale The Snow Queen, or listen to the best bits of Prokofiev's erratic but often characteristic late ballet The... Read more... |
theartsdesk an essential site of 2009: BBC Radio 5 LiveFriday, 01 January 2010theartsdesk received a New Year's gift last night when we were given a significant accolade from BBC Radio 5 Live. In Web 2009 with Helen and Olly, the station's podcasters and self-styled "internet obsessives" Helen Zaltzman and Olly Mann... Read more... |
Dance 2000-9: From Ballet to Hip HopThursday, 31 December 2009![]() The Noughts were a bonanza time for builders, scientists and bureaucrats in the dance arena, throwing up numerous fine dance venues and bases, collaborating intellectually with modern choreographers, or targeting social minorities, but the blazing... Read more... |
The Royal Ballet in Cuba, More4 / The Rite of Spring, BBC ThreeSaturday, 26 December 2009![]() There were some odd sights in Christmas Day viewing but none more discomfiting, I’d bet, than seeing a ballerina lying on a physio’s couch having a leg dragged quickly up to touch the side of her head while the other leg lay perfectly still pointing... Read more... |
Boxing Day Bloat: theartsdesk recommendsSaturday, 26 December 2009![]() The morning after the day before has dawned. If you're not inclined to join the shopping queues, theartsdesk is happy to suggest alternatives. Our writers recommend all sorts of cultural things you could get up to in the next week.See Wicked. This... Read more... |
A Merry Little Christmas Eve: theartsdesk recommendsThursday, 24 December 2009![]() As we all have only one shopping day left, theartsdesk hopes to make Christmas Eve a little easier by offering a few enlightened recommendations. From our writers on new and classical music, opera and ballet, film and comedy, here is a list of CDs... Read more... |
Dance DVDs Round-Up 1Sunday, 20 December 2009![]() The improvement in ballet film from video to DVD has been colossal and welcome. The audio experience too has improved by leaps and bounds as it is more and more geared towards computers with earphones, rather than dodgy TVs. Hand in hand with... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Sadler's WellsFriday, 18 December 2009![]() For a choreographer the moment your work becomes a classic is when the audience tells you that you’re casting it wrong. I’ve seen Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake more than a dozen times for professional reasons since it first took off from Sadler’s Wells... Read more... |
Pied Piper, Barbican & Into the Hoods, QEHWednesday, 16 December 2009![]() Hip hop is the new ballet. Instead of mostly girls in tutus, mostly boys in tracksuits; instead of pointe-shoes, trainers; instead of arabesques and fouettés, handstands and windmills; above all, instead of nice, nasty. The smell on stage is burning... Read more... |
