Dance
Royal Ballet New Works, Linbury Studio Theatre, ROHFriday, 04 June 2010![]() Ninette de Valois said the solution to a shortage of choreographic talent was this: “You wait.” Waiting through the Nineties and early Noughties proved the Royal Ballet founder’s point - suddenly new distinctive ballet talent is cropping up all over... Read more... |
Chroma/ Tryst/ Symphony in C, Royal BalletMonday, 31 May 2010![]() A Balanchine on a mixed bill is a reminder of what a choreographer should desire to offer his audience: a specific new experience of art each time, not a repeated thumbprint in every ballet. Balanchine grew up in a borderless theatre country... Read more... |
Christopher Wheeldon premiere, New York City BalletSunday, 30 May 2010![]() What is going on at New York City Ballet, home of the abstract, neo-classical, pared-down, no-scenery, no-story, nothing-extraneous aesthetic that George Balanchine made into an artistic religion? So far, three out of the four pieces commissioned... Read more... |
The Art of Touch/ Rainforest/ A Linha Curva, Rambert, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 25 May 2010![]() There are occasionally pieces of dance that you just want not to have to scribble notes about, just to watch and enjoy through your senses, not perming it all through the verbal brain. Siobhan Davies’s The Art of Touch is one of those, and when her... Read more... |
BABEL (words), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui & Antony Gormley, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 18 May 2010![]() Collaborations for dance, theatre and other things are coming thick and fast at Sadler’s Wells nowadays - these are not halcyon days for pure choreography. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has become a regular at Rosebery Avenue with his mixed-theatre works FOI... Read more... |
Wayne McGregor & Alexei Ratmansky premieres, New York City BalletSunday, 16 May 2010![]() In the New York City Ballet’s grand tradition of ambitious festivals of new work, its current offering, Architecture of Dance, is a big, ambitious deal: seven new ballets; four of them to commissioned scores; five sporting sets by the famed... Read more... |
Classical ballet and recorders?Tuesday, 11 May 2010![]() The recorder is indelibly associated with school and dreaded first music classes, but the association will be on a considerably higher plane on 21 June when the world recorder star Michala Petri combines with the Royal Ballet School for a one-off... Read more... |
Mathilde Monnier and La Ribot, Queen Elizabeth HallSunday, 09 May 2010![]() These past five days in May have seen some fairly oddball goings-on labelled as "New Dance at the Southbank Centre". Accidentally coinciding with other oddball goings-on on the national scene, since it was booked up long ago before elections were... Read more... |
Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's Asphodel MeadowsFriday, 07 May 2010![]() Johan Persson took the photographs for The Royal Ballet's world premiere of Liam Scarlett's Asphodel Meadows, which opened on 5 May 2010. Read theartsdesk's review of the ballet here.The music is Francis Poulenc's 1932 Concerto for Two Pianos;... Read more... |
Electric Counterpoint/ Asphodel Meadows/ Carmen, Royal BalletWednesday, 05 May 2010![]() Wonder of wonders - a really cracking triple bill at the Royal Ballet last night. The best of the year, by a country mile, and probably the best for several years: a top-notch beauty from Christopher Wheeldon, the love-it-or-loathe-it Marmite of... Read more... |
Les 7 Doigts, Peacock Theatre/ Cie Deborah Colker, touringMonday, 03 May 2010![]() As we look on the strictly dieting future that undoubtedly waits for the more esoteric arts after Thursday’s election, it’s evident that the dance landscape has already been blighted - and self-blighted, at that. Somewhere in the past few years a... Read more... |
Ballet biography wins top theatre book prizeWednesday, 28 April 2010The Society for Theatre Research’s book of the year award has been won by ballet critic Jann Parry for Different Drummer, her biography of the Royal Ballet choreographer Kenneth MacMillan. The book was chosen this morning in a tight finish at the... Read more... |
