Frederick Ashton
Daphnis & Chloë/ The Two Pigeons, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham HippodromeSaturday, 03 March 2012
There must be a protest movement going on in Birmingham’s ballet against London’s - if down south they insist on Kenneth MacMillan’s box-office blasters, so in the Midlands it’s Frederick Ashton’s more fragile work that reigns. BRB director David... Read more... |
La Fille Mal Gardée, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Sadler's WellsFriday, 21 October 2011
It may be that there is no sunnier place than Ashton’s La fille mal gardée. Certainly there is no sunnier ballet. It speaks not of great drama, nor ecstasy, but instead of gentle happiness, of quiet content and loving kindness. Not, one might think... Read more... |
Limen/Marguerite & Armand/Requiem, Royal BalletMonday, 10 October 2011
The cool physical activity of McGregor’s Limen, the crimson passions of Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand, the symbolic sculpture of MacMillan’s Requiem - the weekend's new triple bill at Covent Garden shows three faces of British ballet-making over... Read more... |
Late run to preserve genius's worksMonday, 10 October 2011
Death concentrates the mind wonderfully, as they say. In the wake of the demise last week of Alexander Grant, who owned the choreographer Frederick Ashton's world-wide hit ballet La fille mal gardée, the Royal Ballet has announced that it is... Read more... |
British ballet's secret weapon, funny and dangerousThursday, 06 October 2011
You hear the names of the princes and romantic heroines in ballet, but the global success of 20th-century British ballet had much to do with its dramatic acuity and nuancing, the unexpected side characters who in the ballets of Ashton and MacMillan... Read more... |
Ashton's Romeo and Juliet, London ColiseumWednesday, 13 July 2011
Like planets crossing in the skies, light years apart, but by some ocular illusion coinciding, this conjunction of the two most thrilling young Bolshoi stars in the world and Frederick Ashton’s rarely staged Romeo and Juliet really must be seen.... Read more... |
Interview Special: Bolshoi Dancers Natalia Osipova & Ivan VasilievSunday, 10 July 2011
“What I love about her is her emotion, her true emotion. She’s a ball of energy and emotion all together, quite an amazing thing. From the first time I saw her, I thought I want her to be my girlfriend.” Ivan Vasiliev, the young Bolshoi Ballet... Read more... |
The Place Prize for Dance/ Cinderella, Royal BalletThursday, 07 April 2011
Reports of ballet’s death are greatly exaggerated, but I’m not equally sanguine about the craft of choreography. Having sat dumbstruck through the four limping dogs masquerading as finalists in The Place’s prize “for dance” [sic] on Tuesday, I... Read more... |
DVD: The Tales of Beatrix PotterThursday, 07 April 2011
Forty years ago, my childhood self wasn't in the least bored by Frederick Ashton's balletic animal magic: I saw it twice in cinemas large and small and asked for the soundtrack LP of John Lanchbery's masterly Victorian-potpourri ballet score for my... Read more... |
Sylvie Guillem, Ballerina in EvolutionWednesday, 09 September 2009
The phenomenal French ballerina Sylvie Guillem (b. 1965) has always been a modern woman, for all her classical ballerina dress. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1989 from Nureyev's Paris Opera Ballet, on terms of strictest independence, hardly saying... Read more... |
Last Dance: Why Our Best Ballets Are Slowly DyingTuesday, 20 July 1999
Sir Frederick Ashton, Britain's unrivalled genius at creating ballets, had a simple attitude towards posterity. "You've heard his famous remark, 'Fuck posterity'?" says his nephew, Anthony Russell-Roberts, smiling but eyeing me apprehensively.Ashton... Read more... |
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