dance

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Prog 2, Peacock Theatre

Hanna Weibye Thursday, 24 September 2015

If the Trocks didn't exist, we would have to invent them. Every genre needs its loving parodists, treading the fine line between homage and dommage, and an art form as stylised and convention-governed as classical dance is riper for it than most - as evidenced by the continuing worldwide success of this all-male comedy troupe after more than 40 years.

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Peacock Theatre

David Nice Thursday, 17 September 2015

If you don’t know the steps or the stars being semi-spoofed, will you laugh? Yes, though perhaps not as much as anticipated. The best parody needs to be as good as the original, and “the Trocks”, as Tory Dobrin's New York-based company has been known in its 40-plus years to date, take their Petipa and Ivanov very seriously.

The King Who Invented Ballet, BBC Four

Hanna Weibye Monday, 14 September 2015

Someone more unlike Louis XIV than David Bintley is hard to imagine.

Comment

Lest We Forget, English National Ballet, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Wednesday, 09 September 2015

When English National Ballet premiered Lest We Forget in April last year, to enthusiastic reviews, they were ahead of the pack with First World War commemoration, and the ambitious modern programme was the first sign of Tamara Rojo's determination to make the company's repertoire more contemporary.

McGregor/Spuck, Ballett Zürich, Edinburgh Playhouse

Hanna Weibye Friday, 28 August 2015

New Edinburgh Festival director Fergus Linehan has made it clear he wants to offer things people actually want to see. So including Wayne McGregor - prolific, popular, energetically self-promoting doyen of contemporary dance - in the dance programme for the first time makes plenty of sense.

Seven, Ballett am Rhein/RSNO, Edinburgh Playhouse

Hanna Weibye Friday, 21 August 2015

When the Royal Opera House told Kenneth MacMillan that Mahler was unsuitable for ballet, he went – where else? – to Germany. Though the success of MacMillan's Lied von der Erde for Stuttgart Ballet led to its happy adoption into Royal Ballet repertoire, making ballet to Mahler still seems to draw German companies more than others – whether because the orchestras, audiences, or state subsidies are better, who knows?

Lo Real, Israel Galván, Edinburgh Festival Theatre

Hanna Weibye Thursday, 20 August 2015

It is an axiom of Israel Galván criticism to say the Spaniard is wired differently. He's the "Bowie of flamenco" - leggy and intense, unpredictably sparky, intemittently brilliant, and sometimes incomprehensible.

Swan Lake, St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, London Coliseum

Hanna Weibye Friday, 14 August 2015

St Petersburg Ballet Theatre is a phenomenon of the new Russia: not anchored in centuries of history or state patronage like its neighbours the Mariinsky and the Mikhailovsky, but founded as a commercial venture in 1994 by Konstantin Tachkin, a wannabe impresario with no balletic training.

Matthew Bourne's The Car Man, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Monday, 20 July 2015

The original idea for the subtitle of this show, first made in 2000 and last seen at Sadler's Wells in 2007, was apparently "An Auto-Erotic Thriller". Yes, groan. But "erotic thriller" is a much straighter description of The Car Man than its actual, rather coy, subtitle, "Bizet's Carmen Reimagined". This is a nail-biting ride, and certainly not suitable for kids.

Cinderella, Wheeldon, London Coliseum

Hanna Weibye Thursday, 09 July 2015

Christopher Wheeldon is the purveyor of pretty. You can perfectly well see why San Francisco Ballet, who commissioned a new full-length work from Wheeldon in 2012, got cold feet at the prospect of tackling the difficult, Britten-scored Prince of the Pagodas, and steered Wheeldon instead towards Cinderella, with its ready-made audience of little girls in blue sparkly dresses and splendid Prokofiev score.