Dance
Nine Songs, Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan, Sadler’s WellsSaturday, 22 February 2014
In 2008, a disastrous fire gutted Cloud Gate’s rehearsal studio in Taipei destroying props, costumes and the company archive. Amazingly though, the masks worn by the deities in Nine Songs survived the blaze and Lin Hwai-min, founder of the award-... Read more... |
Opus, Circa and Debussy String Quartet, BarbicanFriday, 21 February 2014
Well! Just when you think you’ve constructed a nice tripartite schema for dance styles based on their relationship with the ground, along comes a company which tears up that rule book entirely.Last week I theorized that contemporary dance goes down... Read more... |
1980, Tanztheater Wuppertal, Sadler's WellsSunday, 09 February 2014
Review convention is to put this at the end, but I can’t risk you stopping reading before I can say: go and see 1980 while it is at Sadler's Wells this week. It is one of the most extraordinary works you will ever watch.If ballet is about... Read more... |
Rhapsody/Tetractys/Gloria, The Royal BalletFriday, 07 February 2014
Is it odd that, in a bill containing an achingly contemporary première and a classic meditation on the First World War, a pastel-painted present for the Queen Mother’s birthday should race away with the honours?Not if it was by Frederick Ashton, the... Read more... |
Men in Motion III, London ColiseumFriday, 31 January 2014
Two years, nearly to the day, since its first London outing, Ivan Putrov’s all-male ballet showcase, Men in Motion, is back in town. Does the damning of that 2012 première as too slight still sting Putrov? Men in Motion III seems designed to... Read more... |
Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse: Enfant, Sadler’s WellsThursday, 30 January 2014
At first the machines are in control. A crane drags the inert body of a woman across the floor, lifts her up and leaves her dangling from the waist. A man follows, dragged by one foot and suspended upside down. The two bodies rise and fall or swing... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Royal BalletSaturday, 25 January 2014
"Be careful what you wish for," fairy tales teach us. After I wished in December for more bite in Scottish Ballet’s saccharine Hansel and Gretel, along comes this revival of Liam Scarlett’s 2013 version of the same story for the Royal Ballet.... Read more... |
Giselle, Royal BalletSunday, 19 January 2014
Ah, Giselle. Despite being cobbled together from a huge stack of 19th-century literary and dramatic tropes – fans of La Sylphide, Robert le Diable, Lucia di Lammermoor, Walter Scott and German Romanticism will feel right at home – and having a score... Read more... |
Le Corsaire, English National BalletFriday, 10 January 2014
How silly is ballet allowed to be? It is a question that is not, well, as silly as it looks. English National Ballet’s director, Tamara Rojo, has set out her stall with a glitzy production of this 19th-century classic, her first full-length... Read more... |
The Nutcracker, Moscow City Ballet, Cambridge Corn ExchangeMonday, 06 January 2014
England is the biggest and richest market for the small privately-run company Moscow City Ballet, which stands in a long history of touring companies peddling “authentically” Russian ballet to international audiences. I am forced to admire the... Read more... |
Hansel and Gretel, Scottish Ballet, Theatre Royal, GlasgowFriday, 27 December 2013
When he became Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet in 2002, Ashley Page’s first creation for the company was a witty, pacy, Nutcracker, the kind of box-office friendly production all companies need to win the hearts of the public and stabilise the... Read more... |
Boing!, Lilian Baylis Studio TheatreSaturday, 21 December 2013
Boing! shows that for a successful dance theatre production for children, you don't need very much. In fact, all that's required is a simple bed frame centre stage and a particularly bouncy mattress.Travelling Light and Bristol Old Vic teamed up... Read more... |
