theatre design
DVD: Cycling with MoliereThursday, 21 August 2014
The sheer joy of making theatre provides the central attraction of Cycling with Moliere (Alceste à bicyclette), but Philippe Le Guay’s film is also rich in the comedy of fractious interaction between old friends whose worlds have moved apart. It’s... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Lighting Designer Michael HullsMonday, 14 April 2014
Last night the Olivier Awards handed their top honour for dance not to a dancer but to the man who shines the lights on the dancers. Michael Hulls, winner of the Outstanding Achievement in Dance award, paints the dancing of Sylvie Guillem, Akram... Read more... |
The Light Princess, National TheatreThursday, 10 October 2013
Once upon a time, there were two cultures, and they were at odds. A forested wilderness stretches between the kingdoms of Sealand and Lagobel, as we glean from the childishly-drawn, giant map that serves as a front cloth for the NT's new musical... Read more... |
Ghosts, Almeida TheatreFriday, 04 October 2013
In a moment of scalding intensity at the climax of Ghosts, terrified Oswald sees the sun. Throughout the rest of Ibsen’s celebrated drama about the sins of the past, light is fairly absent. Merely cataloguing the disasters that befall its heroine... Read more... |
Technology's New Fields of Dreams in DanceThursday, 27 June 2013
Technology and dance have long been ardent bedfellows. No other theatrical art gobbles up illusions and tricks quite as greedily and spits them out quite as intriguingly altered. Gaslight was a new technology without which the romantic ballets... Read more... |
Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, The Royal BalletSunday, 15 July 2012
The bells ring out for creativity in the Royal Ballet’s final production under its outgoing director, Monica Mason, and the ambition at least of the enterprise is hugely to be cheered, even if asking seven choreographers to work together is on a... Read more... |
Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, National GalleryThursday, 12 July 2012
Three paintings by Titian depicting stories from Ovid’s poem Metamorphoses welcome you to the National Gallery’s exhibition Metamorphosis: Titian 2012. Diana and Callisto shows Diana casting out the pregnant nymph Callisto from her company. Diana... Read more... |
Akram Khan, DESH, Sadler's Wells TheatreThursday, 06 October 2011
It takes more than utmost craft and rich personality to hold the stage as a soloist - it takes a touch of divine self-belief, which Akram Khan has never displayed to more magnetic effect before than in his new solo DESH. Actually solo is too small a... Read more... |
Design Secrets of Cinderella and The NutcrackerMonday, 22 November 2010
The designer of a fairytale ballet is far, far more important than the choreographer. It's those visions that lodge themselves in children's heads, in adults' memories, embedded with the music. And at no time more potently than Christmas when it's... Read more... |
Behind the Scene at the Museum: The Staging of the Diaghilev ExhibitionSunday, 26 September 2010
The show's curator Jane Pritchard revealed this wonderful kitchen story in a unique walk-round with theartsdesk this week. Her two-year hunt ranged from Diaghilev's passport to glorious Nijinsky costumes, from the Ballets Russes accounts book to... Read more... |
Ralph Koltai, from theatre designer to sculptorWednesday, 22 September 2010
Koltai’s stage designs have been seen in countless operas and theatre productions around the world, and yielded many awards. Of Hungarian extraction, he was born in Berlin in 1924 and granted entry to the UK in 1939. He served with British... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Stage Designer Es DevlinSaturday, 04 September 2010
For the past five years British stage designer Es Devlin has been creating extraordinarily ambitious and imaginative sets for some of the biggest crowd-pullers in the music industry, from Take That to Lady Gaga. But this week she returns to her... Read more... |
