Scottish Ballet
Starstruck, Scottish Ballet review - smart, sassy and cinematicFriday, 03 December 2021
How do you picture Gene Kelly? Most likely in his effervescent screen persona, either as the burly ex-GI of An American in Paris, or as the hoofer without a raincoat in Singin’ in the Rain.You’re less likely to picture him peering through a movie... Read more... |
The Nutcracker: an end-of-year obituaryTuesday, 29 December 2020
If dance lovers have learnt anything in recent months it's to take nothing for granted. How could we ever have been so blasé about The Nutcracker, whose annual reappearance in multiple productions was as inevitable as crowds on Oxford Street? As a... Read more... |
Best of 2017: DanceSaturday, 30 December 2017
With forelock-tugging celebrations of a choreographer who died 25 years ago and a summer visit by the Mariinsky the highest-profile events in the calendar, 2017 may not be remembered as a vintage year for British dance. But there were striking... Read more... |
Kenneth MacMillan, Royal Opera House review - a sprite proves mercilessFriday, 20 October 2017
There are different ways of celebrating a great artist’s legacy, and I suppose they have to coexist. One approach is raptly to admire his or her acknowledged masterpieces, the equivalent of making straight for Guernica or the Mona Lisa. The other... Read more... |
Scottish Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - striking and memorable danceFriday, 09 June 2017
Years ago, MC14/22 (Ceci est mon corps), the Angelin Preljoçaj piece with which this Scottish Ballet double bill opens, made a deep impression on Christopher Hampson. So deep that, once he became Artistic Director of Scottish, he actively sought it... Read more... |
Cinderella, Scottish Ballet, Edinburgh Festival TheatreThursday, 07 January 2016
When producing Cinderella, the main question is: sweet or sour? That Prokofiev score is splendid, but it's no walk in a candy shop; in Act I the stepsisters have passages so scraping, spiky and dissonant that sugar-coating would seem to be out... Read more... |
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scottish Ballet, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 01 April 2015
Your mum told you (or at least, I hope someone did) that it wasn't about being pretty, it was about having personality. True wisdom though this is, you probably also noticed that there are some jobs where it appears to be necessary to conform to a... Read more... |
The Nutcracker, Scottish Ballet, Edinburgh Festival TheatreSunday, 28 December 2014
Every Nutcracker has its day, and every day has its Nutcracker. But sometimes history repeats itself, and so it was that I found myself last night in Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre, scene of my own childhood encounters with ballet, preparing to watch... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Scottish BalletThursday, 15 May 2014
Watching The Royal Ballet’s The Winter’s Tale a few weeks ago, I was struck by the quasi-absurdity of adapting the Bard for dance - a thought numerous choreographers must have encountered while toying with the idea. The complexity of Shakespeare’s... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Scottish Ballet, Theatre Royal, GlasgowFriday, 27 December 2013
When he became Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet in 2002, Ashley Page’s first creation for the company was a witty, pacy, Nutcracker, the kind of box-office friendly production all companies need to win the hearts of the public and stabilise the... Read more... |
Dance GB, ENB/ NDCWales/ Scottish Ballet, Royal Naval CollegeFriday, 06 July 2012
It was one of the better Olympic culture ideas that Wales, Scotland and England should combine in a Dance GB night, with the three “national” dance companies all creating something new. But a risk that had little Wales holding its breath in fear, up... Read more... |
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scottish Ballet, Sadler's WellsMonday, 30 April 2012
Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire carries with it an enormous loading from its past, the associations with those iconic performers on stage and screen Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh not the least of them. For a narrative dance, that... Read more... |
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