fri 26/04/2024

dance

theartsdesk in Riga - 43,290 Latvians sing and dance for their country

David Nice

"They incessantly break down, destroy and fragment the mistrust that exists among people," wrote a Latvian journalist of a folklore group during the start of the Baltic countries' "singing revolution" against Soviet rule in 1988.

Read more...

Michael Chance on continuing opera in Hampshire: 'good people like to work with good people'

Michael Chance

Out of the blue comes a phone call. A freelance career is based on those to a certain extent. Certainly mine has been. But this one was a bit different. “Would you come and talk to us about the way forward?”. I soon learnt that what this actually meant was, “would you launch and run a new opera festival for us?”

Read more...

Manon, Royal Ballet review - glitter and betray

David Nice

"Massenet feels it as a Frenchman, with powder and minuets," declared Puccini in annoucing his own operatic setting of the Abbé Prévost's 1731 novel Manon Lescaut.

Read more...

Sir Matthew Bourne remembers Scott Ambler 1960-2018 – 'A prince among men'

Matthew Bourne

Nobody deserves the title of New Adventures “legend” more than Scott Ambler; nobody is remembered more affectionately – the generosity of spirit, the many kindnesses, the fierce loyalty, the tears of pride in company notes sessions, the endearing eccentricities and, of course, the highly embellished and hilarious stories are all legendary to those that knew and worked with him.

Read more...

Best of 2017: Dance

theartsdesk

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.

Read more...

Bolshoi's controversial Nureyev ballet opens – to ovations and bans

Ismene Brown

Nureyev, the most notorious new production at the Bolshoi Ballet’s modern history, premiered last night in Moscow to a 15-minute standing ovation and exclamations of official approval even by Putin’s press secretary – but the ballet’s creator and director languished under house arrest, refused permission to see...

Read more...

Fierce: the Birmingham festival which reaches out to Europe and beyond

Aaron Wright

Since its inception in 1997 Fierce, Birmingham’s International Festival of Live Art & Performance, has championed the work of performance makers not often seen in Britain. The pantheon of body artists under Mark Ball’s era as director included the likes of Franko B, Ron Athey and Kira O’Reilly.

Read more...

Sergei Vikharev, master ballet-reconstructor, 1962-2017

Ismene Brown

Just as the 200th anniversary is about to be celebrated of the great genius of 19th-century classical ballets, Marius Petipa, the creator of The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, La Bayadère, half of Swan Lake, and many other masterpieces, his oeuvre's most remarkable reconstructor has died suddenly, aged only 55.

Read more...

Preview: International Dance Festival Birmingham 2016

Hanna Weibye

International Dance Festival Birmingham (IDFB) is one of the unsung heroes not just of dance in Britain, but of festivals. It treats anyone within striking distance of the West Midlands to an exciting range of performers and public dance events over three weeks, and is cleverly scheduled in May – when lengthening days and bank holidays make us want to go out and have a good time, but it's not quite warm enough for camping.

Read more...

Best of 2015: Dance & Ballet

Hanna Weibye

It was business as usual in the British dance world in 2015. Looking back over the year, theartsdesk's dance critics see the industry's many talented, capable people continuing to do their jobs well, but we don't recall being shaken, stirred or surprised as often as in other years, or at least not by new works: our top moments of the year are concentrated in the farewells of great dancers Sylvie Guillem and Carlos Acosta, and in classic productions of classic ballets.

Read more...

Pages

latest in today

I.S.S. review - sci-fi with a sting in the tail

Earthrise, the 1968 Apollo 8 photograph of our small island of a planet, taken from the Moon’s surface, transformed our vision of our...

Album: St Vincent - All Born Screaming

The thing with Annie Clark, better known as the triple-Grammy-winning iconoclast St Vincent, is that much like an actual saint the multi...

Eye to Eye: Homage to Ernst Scheidegger, MASI Lugano review...

With a troubled gaze and a lived-in face, the portrait of artist Alberto Giacometti on a withdrawn...

Christian Pierre La Marca, Yaman Okur, St Martin-in-The-Fiel...

The French cellist Christian-Pierre La Marca confesses that – like so many classical musicians...

That They May Face The Rising Sun review - lyrical adaptatio...

In director Pat Collins’s lyrical adaptation of John McGahern’s last novel, with cinematography by Richard Kendrick, the landscape is perhaps the...

Album: Pet Shop Boys - Nonetheless

This album came with an absolutely enormous promo campaign. As well as actual advertising there were “Audience With…” events, and specials on BBC...

Ridout, Włoszczowska, Crawford, Lai, Posner, Wigmore Hall re...

Advice to young musicians, as given at several “how to market your career” seminars: don’t begin a biography with “one of the finest xxxs of his/...

Stephen review - a breathtakingly good first feature by a mu...

Stephen is the first feature film by multi-media artist Melanie Manchot and it’s the best debut film I’ve seen since Steve McQueen’s ...

Album: Mdou Moctar - Funeral for Justice

Despite its title, Mdou Moctar’s new album is no slow-paced mournful dirge. In fact, it is louder, faster and more overtly political than any of...

Blue Lights Series 2, BBC One review - still our best cop sh...

The first season of Blue Nights was so close to ...