tue 19/03/2024

Dance reviews, news & interviews

Swan Lake, Royal Ballet review - grand, eloquent, superb

Jenny Gilbert

In uncertain times like these, the single thing that every flagship ballet company needs is a convincing iteration of a 19th-century blockbuster. New works are all very well and necessary, but they don’t have the pulling power of Swan Lake, or the staying power.

First Person: Ten Years On - Flamenco guitarist Paco Peña pays tribute to his friend, the late, great Paco de Lucía

Paco Peña

There are moments that forever remain imprinted in our consciousness, engraved on the general map of our lives. I cannot forget the excitement of seeing snow for the first time in Córdoba, aged three or four, rushing to walk on it only to slip straight away and fall on my behind! Or when I discovered the sea, in Cádiz.

Dance for Ukraine Gala, London Palladium review...

Helen Hawkins

It’s tempting to see the second gala created by Ukrainian-born Ivan Putrov as a reflection of the shift in Ukraine’s fortunes since his first one in...

Nelken: A Piece by Pina Bausch, Sadler's...

Helen Hawkins

Perhaps the most memorable of the stage designs Peter Pabst created for Pina Bausch is back in London after nearly 20 years: a sea of erect pink silk...

Dark With Excessive Bright, Royal Ballet review...

Jenny Gilbert

The word “immersive” is overused. When an immersive experience can be anything from a foreign language course to a trip down the Amazon on a headset...

La Strada, Sadler's Wells review - a long and bumpy road

Jenny Gilbert

Even the exceptional talents of Alina Cojocaru can't save dance adaptation of Fellini film

First Person: pioneering juggler Sean Gandini reflects on how the spirit of Pina Bausch has infiltrated his work

Sean Gandini

As Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch's 'Nelken' comes to Sadler’s Wells, a tribute from across the art forms

Manon, Royal Ballet review - a glorious half-century revival of a modern classic

Jenny Gilbert

Fifty years on, Kenneth MacMillan's crash-and-burn anti-heroine is riding high

Giselle, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - if you go down to the woods today, beware of the Wilis

Jenny Gilbert

A revival of Mary Skeaping's lovingly researched production, packed with lively detail and terrific suspense

Best of 2023: Dance

Jenny Gilbert

Eco-politics, digital wizardry, brilliant revivals, brave new ventures and the occasional stunning new work

Edward Scissorhands, Sadler's Wells review - a true Christmas treat, witty and beguiling

Helen Hawkins

Matthew Bourne's endearing hero returns with added poignancy

Nutcracker, Tuff Nutt Jazz Club, Royal Festival Hall review - a fresh, compelling, adult take on a festive favourite

Jenny Gilbert

Drew McOnie offers a fresh coming-of-age twist in a compact new jazz version

The Dante Project, Royal Ballet review - brave but flawed take on the Divine Comedy returns

David Nice

Hell and Purgatory get vivid if diffuse music from Thomas Adès, but Heaven is pallid

The Limit, Linbury Theatre review - a dance-theatre romcom that lacks both rom and com

Jenny Gilbert

An attempt to amplify a playscript with dance suggests the play should be left to speak for itself

Anemoi / The Cellist, Royal Ballet review - a feast of music in a neat double bill

Jenny Gilbert

Rachmaninov and Elgar take the laurels in a brace of prize-winning one-act ballets

Song of Songs, Pam Tanowitz/David Lang, Barbican Theatre review - sublime music and intricate dance bring life to a 2,000-year-old love poem

Jenny Gilbert

Music and movement co-exist but don't align in a glimmering new take on an ancient text

First Person: Pulitzer Prize winning composer David Lang on the original Jewish love story

David Lang

Music, poetry and movement combine in 'Song of Songs', now running at the Barbican

Don Quixote, Royal Ballet review - crazy Russian-Spanish romcom, brilliant dancing

Jenny Gilbert

Carlos Acosta's hugely entertaining production launches the season with gusto

Ballet Nights, Lanterns Studio Theatre review - dance gets its own cabaret season

Jenny Gilbert

A compered gala packed with fine and varied items, but the idea still needs tweaking

Black Sabbath: The Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome review - two very different art forms merge

Guy Oddy

Carlos Acosta creates shining gold from heavy metal and ballet

Ailey 2, Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury review - young, black and fabulous

Jenny Gilbert

The younger sibling of the Alvin Ailey family visits for the first time in 12 years

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Sadler's Wells review - exhilarating display of a full deck of dance styles

Helen Hawkins

From stately to sexy, these fabulously physical dancers engage every emotion

Matthew Bourne's Romeo + Juliet, Sadler's Wells review - exhilarating dancing, inventive moves

Helen Hawkins

New Adventures creates lovers with tender appeal for a younger generation

Jewels, The Australian Ballet, Royal Opera House review - a sparkling parade of great dancing

Helen Hawkins

David Hallberg's Australians are pitch perfect in Balanchine's masterpiece

Carlos at 50, Royal Opera House review - lovingly designed gala from a still impressive star

Helen Hawkins

The Cuban dancer is a living tribute to the power of the arts

theartsdesk at the Ravenna Festival - invisible cities and possible dreams

David Nice

Teatro delle Albe's Don Quixote drama rivals Riccardo Muti's Paths of Friendship concert

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's Wells - a roaring start to the Flamenco Festival

Jenny Gilbert

The reigning queen of zapateado shows us her soul

Untitled, 2023 / Corybantic Games / Anastasia Act III, Royal Ballet review - a magnificent end to the season

Jenny Gilbert

There's grist and glory in this triple bill, and a career-high for Wayne McGregor

Requiem, Opera North review - partnership and diversity

Robert Beale

Choral-orchestral performance meets contemporary dance in cross-cultural fusion

Footnote: a brief history of dance in Britain

Britain's reputation as one of the world's great ballet nations has been swiftly won, as home-grown classical ballet started here only in the 1930s. Yet within 30 years the Royal Ballet was recognised as the equal of the greatest and oldest companies in France, Russia or Italy. Now the extraordinary range in British dance from classical ballet to contemporary dance-theatre, from experimental new choreography in small spaces to mass arena-ballet spectaculars, can't be matched in the US or Russia, where nothing like the Arts Council subsidy system exists to encourage new work.

Fonteyn_OndineWhile foreign stars have long been adored by British audiences, from Anna Pavlova and Rudolf Nureyev to Sylvie Guillem, the British ballet and dance movements were offspring of the movement towards a national subsidised theatre. This was first activated in the Thirties by Lilian Baylis and Ninette de Valois in a tie-up between the Old Vic and Sadler's Wells, and led to the founding of what became the Royal Ballet, English National Opera and the National Theatre. From 1926 Marie Rambert's Ballet Club operated out of the tiny Mercury Theatre, Notting Hill, a creative crucible producing early stars such as choreographer Frederick Ashton and ballerina Alicia Markova and which eventually grew into Ballet Rambert and today's Rambert Dance. From all these roots developed Sadlers Wells Theatre Ballet (now Birmingham Royal Ballet), London Festival Ballet (now English National Ballet), and Western Theatre Ballet which became Scottish Ballet.

Margot Fonteyn's dominance in the post-war ballet scene (pictured in Ashton's Ondine) and the granting of a Royal charter in 1956 to the Royal Ballet and its school brought the "English ballet" world renown, massively increased when Soviet star Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Kirov Ballet in 1961 and formed with Fonteyn the most iconic partnership in dance history.

The Sixties ballet boom was complemented by the introduction of American abstract modern dance to London, and a mushrooming of independent modern choreographers drawing on fashion and club music (Michael Clark), art and classical music (Richard Alston), movies (Matthew Bourne) and science (Wayne McGregor). Hip-hop, salsa and TV dance shows have recently given a dynamic new twist to contemporary dance. The Arts Desk offers the fastest overnight reviews and ticket booking links for last night's openings, as well as the most thoughtful close-up interviews with major creative figures and performers. Our critics include Ismene Brown, Judith Flanders, David Nice, Matt Wolf and James Woodall

Close Footnote

latest in today

St Mary's Music School, RSNO, Søndergård, Usher Hall, E...

For the second year in a row the Royal Scottish National...

Manhunt, Apple TV+ review - all the President's men

President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on 14 April 1865, five days after General Robert E Lee’s surrender at Appomatox signalled the end of...

Blu-ray: Beautiful Thing

Beautiful Thing’s opening scene plays out like a sweary take on Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl, Meera Syal’s potty-mouthed PE...

Bevan, Williams, BBCSO, MacMillan, Barbican review - inspira...

It began with the tolling of a lone bell and ended in a transcendent blaze of golden light. The UK premiere of James MacMillan’s Fiat Lux...

Salome, Irish National Opera review - imaginatively charted...

“Based on the play by Oscar Wilde,” declared publicity on Dublin buses and buildings, reminding opera-cautious citizens that the poet whose text...

Album: Elbow - Audio Vertigo

On this, their 10th album, the melodious...

First Person: conductor Peter Whelan on coming full circle w...

There's something undeniable about the way music can weave itself into the fabric of our lives, shaping our passions and leaving an indelible...

Music Reissues Weekly: The Mystic Tide - Frustration

Crashing chords are followed by a spindly, untrammelled solo guitar. After this subsides, the singer lays out the issue: “I try, I cry, I just can...

Hughes, SCO, Kuusisto, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh review - Clyn...

Most concert promoters will tell you that contemporary music tends to be, to put it politely, a tricky sell, which is one of the reasons why it’s...

The New Boy review - a mystical take on Australia's tre...

This is writer-director Warwick Thornton’s third...

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters