ballet
The Ballet That Began in the BathTuesday, 14 September 2010This week Scottish Ballet opens its new season with a ballet of genius that began life in the bath. The bath is a great place for inspiration. The Greek mathematician Archimedes discovered the law of hydrostatics in it. The choreographer Frederick... Read more... |
My Summer Reading: Dancer Carlos AcostaFriday, 03 September 2010Carlos Acosta is not just a superstar dancer with the Royal Ballet and around the world, he is an avid reader - and indeed writer. After writing his autobiography No Way Home, he has also scripted dance shows and is now writing a novel.... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe: Bo Burnham/ Ovid's Metamorphoses/ Tony Tanner's CharlatanSaturday, 28 August 2010Bo Burnham says he doesn’t like the terms musical comic, internet sensation or teenage wonder. Well he’s all three, save the last now, as he turned 20 during this year’s Fringe - and anyway he prefers the term prodigy, he tells us in deadpan tones... Read more... |
What did Jane Avril eat? Ask Celebrity MasterchefWednesday, 18 August 2010What's the preferred scoff of Moulin Rouge can-can dancers? We found out, rather accidentally, last night, if you watched the final of Celebrity Masterchef. And if the world's dancers don't beat down the doors of Paris to get in, I'll eat my chat.... Read more... |
Cinderella, English National Ballet, London ColiseumWednesday, 11 August 2010English National Ballet turns 60 next week, and nowadays just enduring has to be enough. Smelling of greasepaint and tour buses from the very first, it also smelled of stars - Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin who began it, Rudolf Nureyev and Natalia... Read more... |
Don Quixote, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera HouseSaturday, 07 August 2010There is a moment when you see dancers at their absolute peak that notches a bit of history in your memory - you never forget when you see it happen. In my area of contemporary choreography you can’t measure it in those terms but you can with... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Impresarios Victor and Lilian Hochhauser, Part 2Friday, 06 August 2010In the second part of this historic career overview interview with the unique British impresarios, Victor and Lilian Hochhauser talk about their razor-edged relations with Soviet apparatchiks and the pressures they came under to prevent artist... Read more... |
Le Corsaire & Paquita Triple Bill, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera HouseMonday, 02 August 2010After all the encomia for Natalia Osipova it’s time for a paean to another Bolshoi ballerina, whose witty underplaying and conquest of style makes her the lady I’d choose to see shipwrecked in full tutu, diamonds and pink satin pointe shoes on... Read more... |
Carlos Acosta, Premieres, London ColiseumSunday, 01 August 2010Great stars get lost sometimes. Up there in outer space, ringed with adulation, when they get a mid-life crisis sometimes they get sucked into a vanity black hole. No light emits, just the tatters of an angel who lost his way in his own legend.... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Impresarios Victor and Lilian Hochhauser, Part 1Saturday, 31 July 2010When the words "commercial" and "art" come together - as they do with the Bolshoi season currently at the Royal Opera House - odds are the glue between them is a three-word phrase "Victor Hochhauser presents". Victor and Lilian Hochhauser are the... Read more... |
Confirmation: Nacho Duato to lead St Petersburg ballet companyWednesday, 28 July 2010Confirmation today of the astonishing news from Russia - Nacho Duato will indeed become the new director of the Mikhailovsky Ballet, St Petersburg’s second company, from the New Year. The Spanish contemporary choreographer will be the first... Read more... |
Photo Gallery: Bolshoi Ballet class by Charlotte MacMillanTuesday, 27 July 2010Charlotte MacMillan took these exclusive pictures last week of the Bolshoi corps de ballet in class. The pictures brought back memories of his training to English National Ballet's Kirov-trained principal dancer Dmitri Gruzdyev, as he prepares to... Read more... |