Dance
theartsdesk in Berlin: Three BalletsSunday, 03 April 2016
In London, seeing the same ballet company do three different pieces in three different theatres over four nights would be some kind of festival. In Berlin, it's just business as usual – albeit quite a busy week! – for the hard-working Staatsballett... Read more... |
DVD: Ken Russell - The Great PassionsTuesday, 29 March 2016
The trio of Sixties television documentaries assembled here are prototypical examples of Ken Russell’s oeuvre: hyper-real, and often frenzied, depictions of the lives of their subjects. Each not-quite or more-than documentary was made for the BBC in... Read more... |
Kaash, Akram Khan Company, Sadler's WellsFriday, 04 March 2016
This new run of Kaash is an interesting test case for Akram Khan Company as its eponymous founder approaches his retirement from stage performance (forecast for next year). Kaash was Khan's first full-length work, created in 2002 and widely... Read more... |
10 Questions for Choreographer Matthew BourneMonday, 29 February 2016
Choreographers are not generally household names, but Matthew Bourne must come close. Not only does his company tour frequently and widely, with a Christmas run at Sadler’s Wells that many families regard as an essential fixture of their seasonal... Read more... |
Giselle, Royal BalletSaturday, 27 February 2016
One of the secrets to enjoying life is mastering the creative use of disappointment. Many in the Covent Garden audience last night were no doubt deeply disappointed not to be seeing Natalia Osipova's legendary portrayal of the title role in Giselle... Read more... |
Voces, Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's WellsFriday, 19 February 2016
Claims to embody the spirit of flamenco, or to be born with flamenco in one's blood, abound in the programme of the annual Sadler's Wells flamenco festival. Sara Baras, whose show Voces opened the two week festival on Tuesday, doesn't make such a... Read more... |
Wheeldon Triple Bill, Royal BalletSaturday, 13 February 2016
Christopher Wheeldon's new ballet Strapless scores a first on a number of counts. It’s the first co-production between the Royal Ballet and the Bolshoi (London gets first dibs – Moscow doesn’t get the goods for another 12 months). It forms part of... Read more... |
The Odyssey, Mark Bruce Company, Circomedia, BristolSaturday, 13 February 2016
Mark Bruce did very well with his last dance theatre production Dracula, but this time around he has reached a little too far. The Odyssey is a great text, but with the twists and turns of Ulysses’ return to Ithaca, burdened with the karmic debt of... Read more... |
"...como el musguito...", Pina Bausch, Sadler's WellsFriday, 12 February 2016
Sitting near the front at a Pina Bausch piece always provokes anxiety. As my neighbour in the fourth row remarked, "at best, we'll get offered a cup of tea; at worst, anything might happen." Fortunately for those of a nervous disposition, ...como el... Read more... |
The Return, Circa, BarbicanFriday, 29 January 2016
If you thought circus acrobats and Shostakovich were a daring combination, try circus acrobats and Monteverdi. While the spiky harmonies and vivd dynamics of 20th-century Russian string quartets sit pretty nicely with circus show-offery, surely... Read more... |
Rhapsody/The Two Pigeons, Royal BalletMonday, 18 January 2016
Perhaps the director of the Royal Ballet is a pigeon fancier? With this January run of The Two Pigeons following hard on the heels of one in November, the Royal Ballet's dancers have spent most of the autumn and winter practising the fluttering,... Read more... |
Le Corsaire, English National Ballet, ColiseumThursday, 14 January 2016
It’s being sold as the ideal ballet for first-timers, but I would blush to introduce even my neighbour’s cat to this Carry On Up the Harem hokum. Worse, its silliness verges on offensive. When, in Rudolph Nureyev’s 1990s production of La Bayadère... Read more... |
