dance
She Persisted, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - a must-see triple billSaturday, 06 April 2019
She does indeed persist, that remarkable Tamara Rojo. Dismayed by the fact that, in 20 years as a dancer, she had never performed a ballet made by a woman, she mounted a triple bill called She Said, featuring only work by and about women. Read more... |
Victoria, Northern Ballet, Sadler's Wells - A queen re-instated, once againThursday, 28 March 2019
Given that the life of Queen Victoria spanned the best part of a century, the first task for any biographer is to hack a path through the mountain of facts. It ought to help that the queen was a prolific diarist. Too bad for choreographer Cathy Marston that Victoria’s youngest daughter got there first. Read more... |
The Thread, Russell Maliphant & Vangelis, Sadler’s Wells review – an inspiring marriage of old and newMonday, 18 March 2019
In The Thread Russell Maliphant attempts what, at first sight, appears a foolhardy project – the juxtaposition of contemporary and traditional Greek dance. The two genres seem poles apart, the one being collective and in unison, the other more individualistic and expressive. Read more... |
Bon Voyage, Bob, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells review - interminable ennuiTuesday, 26 February 2019
It's a decade since Pina Bausch sadly died, and during that time her company has kept her memory alive by revisiting her amazingly rich legacy. Inevitably, though, the time would come for them to embark on a new phase; but how? Read more... |
The Rite of Spring/Gianni Schicchi, Opera North review - unlikely but musically satisfying pairingSunday, 17 February 2019
Stravinsky acknowledged that his orchestra for The Rite of Spring was a large one because Diaghilev had promised him extra musicians (“I am not sure that my orchestra would have been as huge otherwise.”) It isn’t huge in Opera North’s production (★★★★★), and for practical reasons they're using the edition arranged by Jonathan McPhee in 1988 for a standard pit band. Read more... |
Swan Lake, English National Ballet, London Coliseum review - a solid, go-to productionFriday, 04 January 2019
Diversity, and the need for more of it, is a hot potato in the theatre arts. Kudos, then, to English National Ballet and its director Tamara Rojo for the 23 nationalities represented within its ranks. Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake, Sadler's Wells - vivid, enchantingSaturday, 15 December 2018
The Matthew Bourne Swan Lake has become a classic. And – lest that word conjure up dusty tomes and a niggling sense of obligation – this is definitively not the old-but-worthy, improving-but-dull kind of classic. Read more... |
The Nutcracker, Royal Ballet review - a still-magical tale of two couplesTuesday, 04 December 2018
Once a year is never too often to revisit one of the most perfect of all orchestral scores (not just for the ballet), a climactic Russian Imperial Pas de deux and the old-fashioned magic of illusionist painted flats flying in and out across a production/choreography that manages to crack the soft nut of a fantastical story only a quarter told. Read more... |
The Unknown Soldier, Infra, Symphony in C, Royal Ballet, review - WWI ballet honours obscure tragedyWednesday, 21 November 2018
Pity fatigue is a risk for any artwork marking the anniversary of the 1918 Armistice. There can’t have been a man or woman in the Royal Opera House on Tuesday night who hadn’t already read, watched, or otherwise had their fill of the horrors of the Western Front and the never-ending debate over the futility of it all. Read more... |
The Sleeping Beauty, London Coliseum review - a triumph for English National BalletThursday, 07 June 2018
When Tamara Rojo won the top job at English National Ballet in 2012, it looked like a poisoned chalice. Directors had come and gone, some of them with visionary ideas, but all were defeated by the company’s peculiar position as underdog to the company at Covent Garden. Read more... |
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