dance

La Pepa, Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Sunday, 02 March 2014

“Goya!” I scribbled enthusiastically in the first moments of La Pepa. “Dos de Mayo!

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The Sleeping Beauty, Royal Ballet

Hanna Weibye Sunday, 23 February 2014

Clement Crisp, veteran ballet critic, once expressed his appreciation for Ashton’s Scènes de Ballet by saying that “if one had to throw ballets off the back of a sleigh, this would be the last to go.” Charming though the train of thought was that this metaphorical situation provoked (an insomniac ballet critic could muse on it for several nights), it can’t accommodate The Sleeping Beauty, which is to other ballets like the QE2 to Crisp’s sleigh.

Nine Songs, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Sadler’s Wells

Sarah Kent Saturday, 22 February 2014

In 2008, a disastrous fire gutted Cloud Gate’s rehearsal studio in Taipei destroying props, costumes and the company archive. Amazingly though, the masks worn by the deities in Nine Songs survived the blaze and Lin Hwai-min, founder of the award-winning company, was so moved by the miracle that he decided to re-stage this sumptuous work.

Opus, Circa and Debussy String Quartet, Barbican

Hanna Weibye Friday, 21 February 2014

Well! Just when you think you’ve constructed a nice tripartite schema for dance styles based on their relationship with the ground, along comes a company which tears up that rule book entirely.

1980, Tanztheater Wuppertal, Sadler's Wells

Hanna Weibye Sunday, 09 February 2014

Review convention is to put this at the end, but I can’t risk you stopping reading before I can say: go and see 1980 while it is at Sadler's Wells this week. It is one of the most extraordinary works you will ever watch.

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Rhapsody/Tetractys/Gloria, The Royal Ballet

Hanna Weibye Friday, 07 February 2014

Is it odd that, in a bill containing an achingly contemporary première and a classic meditation on the First World War, a pastel-painted present for the Queen Mother’s birthday should race away with the honours?

Men in Motion III, London Coliseum

Hanna Weibye Friday, 31 January 2014

Two years, nearly to the day, since its first London outing, Ivan Putrov’s all-male ballet showcase, Men in Motion, is back in town. Does the damning of that 2012 première as too slight still sting Putrov? Men in Motion III seems designed to forestall any such criticism, with an ambitious programme spanning two hours, 11 dancers, and 14 pieces from the last 100 years of choreography.

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Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse: Enfant, Sadler’s Wells

Sarah Kent Thursday, 30 January 2014

At first the machines are in control. A crane drags the inert body of a woman across the floor, lifts her up and leaves her dangling from the waist. A man follows, dragged by one foot and suspended upside down. The two bodies rise and fall or swing round in a duet horribly reminiscent of carcasses hanging in an abattoir.

Hansel and Gretel, Royal Ballet

Hanna Weibye Saturday, 25 January 2014

"Be careful what you wish for," fairy tales teach us. After I wished in December for more bite in Scottish Ballet’s saccharine Hansel and Gretel, along comes this revival of Liam Scarlett’s 2013 version of the same story for the Royal Ballet. Depicting as it does child neglect, domestic violence, paedophilia, murder, psychosis and suicide, Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel has bite all right.

Giselle, Royal Ballet

Hanna Weibye Sunday, 19 January 2014

Ah, Giselle. Despite being cobbled together from a huge stack of 19th-century literary and dramatic tropes – fans of La Sylphide, Robert le Diable, Lucia di Lammermoor, Walter Scott and German Romanticism will feel right at home – and having a score from Adolphe Adam that is definitely not in the first league of ballet music, Giselle is endlessly compelling: the ballet sticks in your mind.