contemporary dance
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, New Adventures, Sadler's Wells review - 30 years on, as bold and brilliant as everMonday, 16 December 2024
How do you refresh a masterpiece? Bringing back his first and still greatest hit, Swan Lake, Matthew Bourne seems to have changed only minor details since its 1995 premiere at Sadler’s Wells. Its core brilliance is untouched.As usual with Bourne,... Read more... |
Maddaddam, Royal Ballet review - superb dancing in a confusing frameSaturday, 16 November 2024
Valiant souls who have recently read the Margaret Atwood trilogy on which this new Wayne McGregor piece for the Royal Ballet is based will be at home with its time-shifting eco-sci-fi narrative. The rest of us, not so much.The appeal of the basic... Read more... |
Encounters, Royal Ballet review - exciting mixed bill with a gem of a premiereThursday, 24 October 2024
In 2022, the American choreographer Pam Tanowitz made a duet on Royal Ballet principals William Bracewell and Anna Rose O’Sullivan, which they performed at the company’s Diamond Celebration. That piece has now evolved into a true gem.Or Forevermore... Read more... |
The Mad Hatter's Tea Party, ZooNation, Linbury Theatre review - a joyous celebration of differentnessTuesday, 10 September 2024
The Mad Hatter gets it about right when he tells Alice: “You’re entirely bonkers… but all the best people are.” Kate Prince takes this line and runs with it in her riotous but surprisingly sweet and often moving hip hop take on Lewis Carroll’s 1865... Read more... |
Ballet Nights #006, Cadogan Hall review - a mixed bag of excellenceSaturday, 07 September 2024
It’s exactly a year since Ballet Nights, the self-styled taster platform for dance, started offering chirpily compered evenings of ballet and contemporary at venues where you'd least expect to find them. A first anniversary is already an achievement... Read more... |
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... |
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... |
Edward Scissorhands, Sadler's Wells review - a true Christmas treat, witty and beguilingTuesday, 19 December 2023
The story of Edward Scissorhands may not seem an obvious Christmas subject, but it couldn’t be a more overt call for goodwill to all men. And there’s a hint of The Nutcracker about Matthew Bourne’s dance version, too.Created in 2005 and last seen in... Read more... |
Ailey 2, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury review - young, black and fabulousWednesday, 27 September 2023
Dance lovers with no access to a major city could feel genuinely hard done by were it not for Dance Consortium. This sainted organisation works to bring a company from overseas each autumn to a dozen or so large-scale theatres across the UK and... Read more... |
Gravity & Other Myths: Out of Chaos, Brighton Festival 2023 review - eye-boggling acrobaticsWednesday, 10 May 2023
With acrobatics at this level, they make it all look so easy, it’s possible for an audience to become complacent. By the time the show Out of Chaos, by the troupe Gravity & Other Myths, from Adelaide, Australia, has finished, the Brighton Dome... Read more... |
Woolf Works, Royal Ballet review - Wayne McGregor's modern classic impresses all over againMonday, 06 March 2023
The more Wayne McGregor’s superb Woolf Works is staged, the richer it seems to become. It has started a third run at Covent Garden since its premiere there in 2015, which, considering the house lost over a year of performances, is some achievement.... Read more... |
Creature review - Asif Kapadia shines light on a dark dance pieceFriday, 24 February 2023
Filmed ballets involve a different way of watching: you may know a piece well, but you aren’t used to staring into its lead dancers’ eyes as they perform their roles. Not all dancers give good close-up, either. But a new film by the Oscar-winning... Read more... |
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