fri 22/08/2025

dance

Woolf Works, Royal Ballet review - Wayne McGregor's modern classic impresses all over again

Helen Hawkins

The more Wayne McGregor’s superb Woolf Works is staged, the richer it seems to become. It has started a third run at Covent Garden since its premiere there in 2015, which, considering the house lost over a year of performances, is some achievement. It is the mark of an instant modern classic.

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The Sacrifice, Dada Masilo, Brighton Dome review - eye-popping dance from South Africa

Jenny Gilbert

The Soweto-born dancer-choreographer Dada Masilo has made her name  telling classic European stories in African dialect. The last piece she toured in the UK was a striking Giselle in which the avenging Wilis were not undead brides but ancestral spirits led by a witch doctor. In his hand, instead of the traditional myrtle branch, symbol of chastity, he carried a fly whisk.

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Creature review - Asif Kapadia shines light on a dark dance piece

Helen Hawkins

Filmed ballets involve a different way of watching: you may know a piece well, but you aren’t used to staring into its lead dancers’ eyes as they perform their roles. Not all dancers give good close-up, either. But a new film by the Oscar-winning director Asif Kapadia of Akram Khan’s Creature, made for English National Ballet in 2021, has transformed the original live version into a moving drama.

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Julie Cunningham & Co, Sadler's Wells review - a fine piece of work, with added spice

Jenny Gilbert

At the arthouse end of contemporary dance no one expects a packed house, still less serial packed houses for more than a week. Yet Sadler’s Wells was fully confident when it invited the dancer-choreographer Jules Cunningham – one of its New Wave Associates – to premiere a new work on its main stage.

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Swan Lake, English National Ballet, Coliseum review - the story of a deluded prince

Jenny Gilbert

So there’s this prince, see, and he’s not at all happy. For a start, he never got over losing a parent when he was a child. He’s at odds with the world, sick to death with royal protocol and convinced that no one understands him. Worse, having too much time on his hands, he suffers from delusions. Meet Prince Siegfried, who found his soulmate, and met his nemesis, on a moonlit night by a lake.

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Best of 2022: Dance

Jenny Gilbert

Come the end of the year, the ritual glance over the shoulder, what we crave is celebration – this year of all years. "Look, we have come through!" is what we all want to hear from arts practitioners who took such a battering in the previous one.

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Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty, Sadler's Wells review - a gothic romance with loads of goth and not much love

Jenny Gilbert

Matthew Bourne is not the first choreographer to tinker with the story of The Sleeping Beauty and he won't be the last, such is the lure of Tchaikovsky's score and the potency of the plot.

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Ruination, Linbury Theatre review - Medea gets a makeover

Jenny Gilbert

At a time when every other theatre is offering an alternative Christmas show, what to make of the Royal Opera House’s first collaboration with Lost Dog, aka director-choreographer Ben Duke, who has come up with the most un-merry topic imaginable? Meet Medea, the vengeful sorceress of Greek myth, who butchered her brother, nobbled her ex’s new bride and murdered her own children. The Wind in the Willows this is not.

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English National Ballet: Ek, Forsythe, Quagebeur review - two masters, two marvels

Jenny Gilbert

Of all the classic musical scores that could appeal to a choreographer, three are catnip: Ravel’s Bolero, Bizet’s Carmen, and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Each has been set dozens of times and the veteran Swedish dancemaker Mats Ek has...

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Birmingham Royal Ballet: Into the Music, Sadler's Wells review - a visual and aural feast

Jenny Gilbert

Carlos Acosta’s idea of putting live music first and foremost in BRB’s latest mixed bill was a no-brainer. The Midlands-based company, directed by Acosta since early 2020, is unique among British ballet companies in being able to call on its own full-time orchestra (the Royal Ballet has to share theirs with the Opera), and it happens to be a first-class band.

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