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theartsdesk in Florence: The British Are Going

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 06 December 2011

In the 1450s in Florence, Alberti was working on the facade of Santa Maria Novella, Donatello and Fra Filippo Lippi were active, while Leonardo was born in nearby village of Vinci. And the English...

The Underbelly Project: New York

Jasper Rees Tuesday, 29 November 2011

Art Basel Miami, the biggest art fair in America, takes place this week. It features the work of 35 street artists who are gathering together in one place for the first time. However, it's not the...

Interview: Novelist Gillian Slovo

Jasper Rees Monday, 28 November 2011

“To my friend Craig.” As all writers must, Gillian Slovo will put her signature to copies of her 2008 novel, Black Orchids, for queues of readers. No other writer will have performed this promotional...

Alina Somova: dancer or circus pony?

Ismene Brown Monday, 03 August 2009

It is a curious feeling to go to meet a hated figure and find a delicate, blonde girl with a sweet face.On Monday, 23-year-old ballerina Alina Somova opens the batting for the legendary Mariinsky...

Interview: What Do We Know About Julian Barnes?

Jasper Rees Saturday, 23 September 2006

Of the golden generation of British novelists now within hailing distance of old age, Julian Barnes is much the most inscrutable. Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan – you know where you are with...

Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine: A passionate love letter re-opened

Ismene Brown Saturday, 22 July 2006

"It was more than just 'I love you'," Suzanne Farrell, America's nonpareil ballerina, the love and inspiration of 20th-century ballet's greatest choreographer, is telling me at breakfast in a little...

Ulyana Lopatkina: The beanpole who became the soul of Russia

Ismene Brown Saturday, 09 July 2005

If you tell a tall, whisper-slim young woman of 31 that she has been described as "the soul of Russia", it is understandable that she looks startled. Two huge, smoke-grey eyes cast a doubtful glance...

Antonio Gades, Flamenco Master

Ismene Brown Thursday, 22 July 2004

Antonio Gades, who died on 20 July 2004 in Madrid aged 67, was a giant of modern flamenco, a magnetic dancer and theatrical director who gained an international audience for flamenco while guarding...

Derevo: Absolute clowns

Ismene Brown Tuesday, 16 January 2001

Clowns are supposed to be chubby, grinning, funny, with anarchic hair and big red noses, like Coco. Or they are Chaplin-types, oppressed little city folk mutely combating the vast machines of the...

In the realm of the Nutcracker king

Ismene Brown Monday, 18 December 2000

At this time of year people who love ballet divide into two tribes: those who are too sophisticated for The Nutcracker and those who will never been too sophisticated for The Nutcracker. The former...

The battle for Balanchine

Ismene Brown Saturday, 22 July 2000

THE choreographer George Balanchine died on April 30, 1983, aged 79, of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease, a rare, if nowadays notorious, condition only discovered at his autopsy. What had been recognised...

Last dance: why our best ballets are slowly dying

Ismene Brown Tuesday, 20 July 1999

Sir Frederick Ashton, Britain's unrivalled genius at creating ballets, had a simple attitude towards posterity. "You've heard his famous remark, 'Fuck posterity'?" says his nephew, Anthony Russell-...

The man who said too much

Ismene Brown Saturday, 22 August 1998

Wayne Eagling was famous for many things in his 25-year career at the Royal Ballet - not least for his rich girlfriends. There was Isabel Goldsmith, daughter of the late Sir James; there was...

Manon: Shock that turned to respect

Ismene Brown Saturday, 04 July 1998

One of the first, scathing reviews of Kenneth MacMillan's ballet Manon in 1974 nailed it exactly: "It is an appalling waste of lovely Antoinette Sibley who, as Manon, is reduced to a nasty little...