dance
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? 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 Spartacus? Read more... |
Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, Sadler's Wells review - storming opening to flamenco festivalThursday, 04 July 2019
Crowned queen of the percussive heel and the trouser suit, Sara Baras has the audience on its feet long before the final number of her show Sombras (Shadows). The Spanish superstar is a familiar presence at Sadler’s Wells, having fronted its annual two-week flamenco festival several times before. She’s a natural headliner with her big, glossy theatrics. Her current offering, though, is a thing of deep contrasts: light and dark, sound and silence, conviviality and yes, loneliness. Read more... |
Mari review - bittersweet drama with flairTuesday, 25 June 2019
Mari is one part kitchen sink drama, one part dance performance, bringing a refreshing take on bereavement and family. Read more... |
The Mother, QEH review - Natalia goes psychoSaturday, 22 June 2019
The publicity said it would be dark. But who would have guessed The Mother would be this dark? Read more... |
Cinderella, English National Ballet, Royal Albert Hall review - big, bright and bankableSaturday, 08 June 2019
It might seem odd to laud the entrances and exits of a ballet, but when it comes to stagecraft Christopher Wheeldon is second to none. You lose count of the ingenious ways he finds to shift up to 130 dancers in and out of view at the Albert Hall. Read more... |
The Firebird triple bill, Royal Ballet review - generous programme with Russian flavourThursday, 06 June 2019
You can’t accuse the Royal Ballet of lightweight programming: the three juicy pieces in the triple bill that opened at the Royal Opera House on Tuesday add up to a three-hour running time. That’s a lot of ballet for your buck. Whether they actually go together is another question. Read more... |
San Francisco Ballet, Liang/Marston/Pita, Sadler's Wells - elemental, ethereal and kitschy, tooTuesday, 04 June 2019
Sun, snow, and some unadorned silliness danced to the music of Björk: no one can accuse San Francisco of casting an insufficiently wide tonal (or climatic) net in this second of four programmes on view from San Francisco Ballet as part of their Sadler's Wells season (continuing to June 8). Having largely thrilled to their all-Shostakovich opener, I found this line-up more of a literally mixed bag. Read more... |
Shostakovich Trilogy, San Francisco Ballet, Sadler's Wells review - less than the sum of its partsSaturday, 01 June 2019
Alexei Ratmansky stands out among contemporary choreographers for two reasons: he still creates genuinely classical dance, and he's more conscious than most that art is dependant on the society it's created in. Read more... |
Four Quartets, Barbican Theatre review - ultimate stage poetryFriday, 24 May 2019
The first surprise is that this hasn’t been done before. The poems that comprise TS Eliot’s Four Quartets are so embedded with references to dance that presenting them alongside choreography feels inevitable. Read more... |
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