Dance
Natalia Osipova: Pure Dance, Sadler's Wells review - a great ballerina branches out, againFriday, 25 October 2019
Sometimes a dance talent arrives that causes the ground to shift and alters the landscape. Natalia Osipova is one such. Not content to be queen of all she surveys at the Royal Ballet, she is hungry for new territory. Pure Dance is the second solo... Read more... |
Concerto/Enigma Variations/Raymonda Act III, Royal Ballet review - time to cheer the corps de balletWednesday, 23 October 2019
As a mood-lifter, it’s hard to beat the opening of Concerto. Against a primrose sky, figures in daffodil, tangerine and brick form lozenges of fizzing colour, foregrounded by a leading couple so buoyant their heels barely ever touch down. Kenneth... Read more... |
The deathless Alicia Alonso, in personFriday, 18 October 2019
The magnificent, controversial Cuban ballerina Alicia Alonso, who asserted that she would live to 200, died yesterday in Havana, aged nearly 99. Legends are always well protected by their own mythology, yet in 2004, when attending the Havana Ballet... Read more... |
Cross Currents/Monotones II/Everyone Keeps Me, Linbury Theatre review - the Royal Ballet finds the missing linkTuesday, 15 October 2019
This programme of three short works is all about influence, specifically the supposed cross currents between ballet and contemporary dance in the latter half of the 20th century. The irony is that this is the first time that the Royal Ballet has... Read more... |
Dada Masilo's Giselle, Sadler's Wells review - bold, brutal, unforgivingTuesday, 08 October 2019
The most arresting thing about Dada Masilo’s contemporary South African take on Giselle is Masilo herself. Tiny and boyishly slight, she inhabits her own fast, fidgety, tribal-inspired choreography with the intensity of someone in a trance. Costumed... Read more... |
Manon, Royal Opera House review - splendid start to the seasonThursday, 03 October 2019
The Royal Ballet’s choice of season opener could be dismissed as safe and predictable. But as the glorious naturalistic detail of 1830s Paris unfolds in Kenneth MacMillan’s 1974 retelling, you see the reasoning. It’s only a year since the Royal... Read more... |
Redd, Barbican Theatre review - hip hop gets the bluesWednesday, 02 October 2019
There was a time when hip hop in a theatre was all about showing off. It was about dancers spinning on their head or their elbow so fast and for so long that the audience gaped in disbelief. Although it had long ago migrated from the concrete... Read more... |
Alvin Ailey, Programme C review - black, beautiful, brilliantThursday, 12 September 2019
The Ailey company is that rare thing – a dance legend that’s even better than you remember. While no one forgets their first encounter with America’s No.1 touring troupe and its unique mix of ballet, modern, jazz, street, and all-round athletic... Read more... |
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, Sadler's Wells review - Still more RevelationsFriday, 06 September 2019
There is no equivalent of the Ailey phenomenon. This is a modern dance company with a New York square named after it. It’s a dance company that has performed at the inauguration of two presidents. Its calling card, Revelations, a suite of dances... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Romeo and Juliet, Sadler's Wells review - heart-stopping dramaSaturday, 10 August 2019
Your first thought on hearing there's a new Matthew Bourne Romeo and Juliet might well be 'doesn't it exist already?' So obvious does this marriage of high drama, lush iconic score, and Britain's premier dance maker seem that you might well be... Read more... |
The Bright Stream, Bolshoi Ballet review - a gem of a comedyThursday, 08 August 2019
Why is Alexei Ratmansky one of the greatest living choreographers of classical ballet? Well partly because, as last night's performance of The Bright Stream by the Bolshoi at the Royal Opera House proved, he can do comedy. To adapt the famous... Read more... |
Spartacus, Bolshoi Ballet, Royal Opera House review - no other company could pull this offWednesday, 31 July 2019
The Bolshoi juggernaut has rolled into town and will be dominating the thoughts of ballet fans in and around the capital for the next three weeks. And what could be more dominating - or more quintessentially Bolshoi - than Yuri Grigorovitch's 1968... Read more... |
