Dance
Carmen, English National Ballet review - lots of energy, even violence, but nothing new to sayWednesday, 03 April 2024
The story of Carmen is catnip to choreographers. No matter how many times this 180-year-old narrative has been tweaked and reframed in art, theatre, opera, dance and film, they keep coming back for more – which is curious when you consider that... Read more... |
WAKE, National Stadium, Dublin review - a rainbow river of dance, song, and so much elseThursday, 21 March 2024
In what feels like the beginning, or at least the Old Testament, there was Riverdance. Now, ready to flow through the world once the world knows it needs it, there’s a rainbow-coloured river of just about everything musical and choreographic that’s... Read more... |
Swan Lake, Royal Ballet review - grand, eloquent, superbFriday, 08 March 2024
In uncertain times like these, the single thing that every flagship ballet company needs is a convincing iteration of a 19th-century blockbuster. New works are all very well and necessary, but they don’t have the pulling power of Swan Lake, or the... Read more... |
First Person: Ten Years On - Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña pays tribute to his friend, the late, great Paco de LucíaSunday, 25 February 2024
There are moments that forever remain imprinted in our consciousness, engraved on the general map of our lives. I cannot forget the excitement of seeing snow for the first time in Córdoba, aged three or four, rushing to walk on it only to slip... Read more... |
Dance for Ukraine Gala, London Palladium review - a second rich helping of international dancersTuesday, 20 February 2024
It’s tempting to see the second gala created by Ukrainian-born Ivan Putrov as a reflection of the shift in Ukraine’s fortunes since his first one in March 2022. Somehow, just weeks after Ukraine was invaded, Putrov and his fellow student in Kyiv,... Read more... |
Nelken: A Piece by Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - welcome return for an indelible classicThursday, 15 February 2024
Perhaps the most memorable of the stage designs Peter Pabst created for Pina Bausch is back in London after nearly 20 years: a sea of erect pink silk carnations, the Nelken of the title. It’s canonical that there are 8,000 of them, but only the... Read more... |
Dark With Excessive Bright, Royal Ballet review - a close encounter with dancers stripped bareWednesday, 14 February 2024
The word “immersive” is overused. When an immersive experience can be anything from a foreign language course to a trip down the Amazon on a headset, what might immersive dance involve? Not watching from a plush-covered seat, probably, and the dance... Read more... |
La Strada, Sadler's Wells review - a long and bumpy roadThursday, 01 February 2024
Federico Fellini’s 1954 classic La Strada ought to be a gift to a choreographer. The film has pathos, good and evil, a bewitchingly gamine heroine, and incidental music by the great Nino Rota, a composer who can find melancholy in the music of... Read more... |
First Person: pioneering juggler Sean Gandini reflects on how the spirit of Pina Bausch has infiltrated his workTuesday, 30 January 2024
I am a juggler. My wife Kati Ylä-Hokkala is also a juggler. Our life for the last three decades has been juggling. We have been fortunate to be practising this art form at a time when mathematical and creative developments meant that our vocabulary... Read more... |
Manon, Royal Ballet review - a glorious half-century revival of a modern classicTuesday, 23 January 2024
It’s 50 years since the first, damning reviews of Kenneth MacMillan’s ballet Manon declared it to be too long and lumbered with terrible music. One of them also said that the title role was an appalling waste of the ballerina who, in the title role... Read more... |
Giselle, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - if you go down to the woods today, beware of the WilisTuesday, 16 January 2024
We’re used to the idea of 19th century ballets being updated, but the Giselle currently presented by English National Ballet takes it the other way.This production, itself more than 50 years old, offers the closest possible experience of a Romantic... Read more... |
Best of 2023: DanceTuesday, 02 January 2024
Dance lovers have had a better time of it this year as the performance sector starts to find its feet again. In the wake of a general cull of independent dance companies, 2023 has seen signs of fresh growth.Lively enterprises have sprouted in... Read more... |
