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-winning company, was so moved by the miracle that he decided to re-stage this sumptuous work. 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. 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. 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? 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 forestall any such criticism, with an ambitious programme spanning two hours, 11 dancers, and 14 pieces from the last 100 years of choreography. 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 round in a duet horribly reminiscent of carcasses hanging in an abattoir. 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. Depicting as it does child neglect, domestic violence, paedophilia, murder, psychosis and suicide, Scarlett’s Hansel and Gretel has bite all right. 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 from Adolphe Adam that is definitely not in the first league of ballet music, Giselle is endlessly compelling: the ballet sticks in your mind. 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 commission for her new company. What she’s selling from that stall, however, is moot. 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 business acumen which makes their success possible, given that English National Ballet notoriously makes heavy losses every time it ventures out of London. Read more... |
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