dance

Romeo and Juliet, Royal Ballet, O2 Arena

Ismene Brown Friday, 17 June 2011

Taking ballet to the masses: the Royal Ballet's corps de ballet on the roof of the O2

The Royal Ballet says it is inviting a new audience to experience the thrill of live ballet by taking Romeo and Juliet to the gigantic O2. Beware what you wish for. It’s the thrill of the live audience I’m starting with before I get onto the splendid show. Sweet packets rustled behind my ear, fish and chips were wolfed nearby, pizza shared, drinks slurped. People were still entering in droves 30 minutes after the start, obstructing the view of Juliet’s first scene. People were late...

Comment

Strictly Gershwin, English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall

Judith Flanders Friday, 10 June 2011

Mark Twain once wrote of his experience of going to German opera. It starts at 6, he said, and they sing for four hours. Then you look at your watch, and it’s 6.15. This is also an all-too-accurate description of a night at English National Ballet’s Strictly Gershwin. Except that I began to look at my watch after 10 minutes.

Old-fashioned ballroom sequins have Derek Deane fatally in thrall

Comment

Michael Clark Company, th, Tate Modern

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 08 June 2011

Michael Clark brings dancers into Tate Modern in a long shadow cast by some memorable events from choreographers Merce Cunningham and Trisha Brown. Now the ground on which Ai Weiwei’s poignant porcelain seeds were piled is swept clean and laid with a striking white-and-black dance floor, with audience seats arrayed on three sides and the massive height of the Turbine Hall politely decked with spotlights.

Comment

Dave St-Pierre Company, Un Peu de Tendresse, Sadler's Wells

Judith Flanders Friday, 03 June 2011

When asked if I wanted to go and see two dozen naked Canadians doing audience participation, the answer was, self-evidently, nonononononononono. And then, for good measure, NO. Well, I’m here to tell you, I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And I apologise to Dave St-Pierre and Company for my foolish prejudices. Un Peu de Tendresse Bordel de Merde ("A little tenderness, for Pete's sake") is an amazing evening of theatre.

Comment

Manon, Royal Ballet

Judith Flanders Thursday, 02 June 2011

If an excess of enthusiasm troubles you, look away now. Because this is less a review, more a love letter. Alina Cojocaru has been astonishing audiences for more than a dozen years. Regular ballet-goers attend her performances expecting to be thrilled. I went expecting to be thrilled. What I didn’t expect was to have a ballet I have been watching for 30-odd years suddenly seem new.

Comment

Scènes de Ballet/ Voluntaries/ The Rite of Spring, Royal Ballet

Judith Flanders Saturday, 28 May 2011

Programming a mixed bill is a very delicate art, and what seems like an interesting mix to one person might appear to be an entirely random series of choices to another. The Royal’s new triple is the perfect example.

Comment

Bern:Ballett, Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House

Judith Flanders Thursday, 26 May 2011

Being a choreographer is harder than it looks. Steps, movement, are just the beginning. On top of that you need to have a sense of theatricality, and then, even more, you need to be able to convey your ideas, through movement alone, to the audience. On these counts, Bern:Ballett’s visit to the Linbury fails to make the grade.

Rambert, Cardoon Club/ Roses/ Monolith, Sadler’s Wells

Judith Flanders Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Another of Paul Taylor's masterpieces: 'Roses', in rehearsal

Paul Taylor's Roses is called Roses because, well, because it is. There are no roses here, no flowery sentiment, no overwrought angst and emotion. This, one of Taylor’s most beautifully serene works, is the smell of roses on a still May evening: fleeting, evanescent and heart-breakingly beautiful. It is also some of the most magisterial - and startlingly original - choreography, even a quarter of a century after it was first made.

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Apocrifu/ Gardenia, Brighton Festival

Ismene Brown Friday, 20 May 2011

Apocrypha is a word that has acquired a dubious meaning, for books of questioned value and authenticity, texts in various religions that may not necessarily be held divine. The Belgian-Moroccan dancemaker Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's dance work Apocrifu applies the word and its queries to the holiest of texts themselves, the Koran, Bible, Kojiki, in a secular era where religion is more about politics than faith.

Cleopatra, Northern Ballet, Sadler's Wells

Judith Flanders Tuesday, 17 May 2011

David Nixon has been artistic director of Northern Ballet for a decade, and it’s probably safe to say he is the king of the story ballet: Wuthering Heights, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Madame Butterfly, Dracula – if it’s got a story, he is, seemingly, willing to tell it. As Christopher Wheeldon’s recent Alice in Wonderland for the Royal Ballet showed, this is not as easy as might first appear. Nixon shoots straight from the hip: he...