Dance
English National Ballet, 2012 SeasonSunday, 19 February 2012
English National Ballet's 2012 summer is studded with events to build new audiences, with a new version for children to introduce them to The Sleeping Beauty, collaborations with Tate Britain and hip hop, and a special Olympics event uniting... Read more... |
Fuenteovejuna, Antonio Gades Company, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 15 February 2012
Flamenco is a fervently political dance language, riddled with subversion of class and gender rankings, honouring old people, hallowing sexual prowess, relishing mavericks, and yet commanding a special symbolic force when it's disciplined into a... Read more... |
Charles Dickens, Theatre and Dance Critic-at-LargeThursday, 09 February 2012
When a young Charles Dickens visited New York in 1842 with his wife, he strolled down Broadway, happened upon an unusual dance and naturally checked out theatreland. As his bicentenary is celebrated, here, from his journal, American Notes For... Read more... |
The Rodin Project, Russell Maliphant Company, Sadler's WellsMonday, 06 February 2012
Like a bleached Mount Parnassus for the gods, pouring linen down steep slopes in foaming white rivers, streaming white curtains up into heaven, few stage sets I’ve seen for a dance piece have been as captivatingly gorgeous as Es Devlin and Bronia... Read more... |
Without Warning, Old Vic TunnelsMonday, 06 February 2012
Site-specific work has been flavour of the month for many many months now, and when the site is as spectacular as the Old Vic Tunnels, one understands why. Nearly 3,000 square metres of tunnelling under Waterloo Station (the trains rumble steadily... Read more... |
From Foot to Foot, How Rhythm Travelled the WorldSunday, 05 February 2012
Two hundred years ago in Durham taverns you could find men in wooden clogs clattering on the tables, with their mates pressing their ears to the underside of the surface. Meanwhile, at the other end of the world, African slaves with bare feet were... Read more... |
The Dream/ Song of the Earth, Royal BalletThursday, 02 February 2012
Oberon in Frederick Ashton’s The Dream was the hurdle at which the ferociously promising young Sergei Polunin refused when he quit the Royal Ballet last week, and whether it was the deceptive complexity and difficulty of it that caused his sudden... Read more... |
Men in Motion, Sadler's Wells TheatreSaturday, 28 January 2012
Sergei Polunin’s flight this week from the Royal Ballet just as he rises to the pinnacle made last night's Sadler's Wells show a very hot ticket for those who wanted to catch his guest appearance in it. But the evening was also a proclamation that... Read more... |
Door left ajar for Royal Ballet star who quitThursday, 26 January 2012
The young Royal Ballet star Sergei Polunin, Covent Garden's most remarkable male discovery for years, has quit the company in a stunning shock that today sent consternation throughout the ballet world from the USA to Japan. But tonight Royal Opera... Read more... |
Draft Works, Royal Ballet, Linbury StudioWednesday, 25 January 2012
A few years ago, the word was that a new choreographer was showing interesting things. His name was Liam Scarlett, and although he was very young, some work that had been seen in a workshop was looking promising. It was not long before “promising”... Read more... |
Romeo and Juliet, Royal BalletMonday, 16 January 2012
How far would you go, if you were utterly in love? Till death you do part? Kenneth MacMillan’s 1965 ballet Romeo and Juliet remains a magnet for audiences and for performers all playing that ritual game with their own feelings. Marianela Nuñez and... Read more... |
Survivor, Hofesh Shechter & Anthony Gormley, Barbican TheatreFriday, 13 January 2012
Empty vessels make the most noise. That pithy old aphorism floated into my head a scant few minutes into the much-heralded new work by the undoubtedly talented, but here way off-beam, Hofesh Shechter. And again, a few minutes later. And again, and... Read more... |
