dance

The Sleeping Beauty, English National Ballet, Milton Keynes Theatre

Ismene Brown Thursday, 18 October 2012

Has the great ballerina Tamara Rojo ever done a more nerveracking performance than she did last night in Milton Keynes?

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Swan Lake, Royal Ballet

Judith Flanders Thursday, 11 October 2012

The Royal Ballet’s autumn season began on Monday, but this was the eagerly awaited Swan Lake. Natalia Osipova, ex-Bolshoi, now principal with American Ballet Theater and the Mikhailovsky in St Petersburg, was making her debut as a guest with the Royal Ballet, partnered by Carlos Acosta.

Love Tomorrow, Raindance Film Festival

Ismene Brown Monday, 08 October 2012

For Darcey Bussell it’s Baryshnikov in The Turning Point; for Carlos Acosta it’s The Red Shoes. No one at last week's starry premiere of Love Tomorrow at the Raindance Film Festival, when I asked them for their favourite dance film, mentioned Black Swan.

Akram Khan's Desh, Sadler's Wells

Sarah Kent Thursday, 04 October 2012

I’ve seen Akram Khan’s Desh twice. The first time I sat in my favourite spot – the front row – close enough to smell the sweat drenching his shirt as the demanding physicality of this ambitious solo work became evident.

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San Francisco Ballet, Balanchine/ Liang/ Wheeldon, Sadler's Wells Theatre

Ismene Brown Sunday, 16 September 2012

It's been eight years since San Francisco Ballet were last here, charming us with their finesse and their smiles - welcome back. They offer a boost of spirit to the gloomsters of ballet over here. This small city which punches many times above its weight in the cultural world owes a vast amount of its self-confidence and charisma to its mixed ethnic roots, so the range of dancers from the Far East via North Europe and the Latino Americas is representative.

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Art in Action, The Tanks, Tate Modern

Igor Toronyi-Lalic Wednesday, 18 July 2012

You now have two choices when you roll down to the bottom of the Turbine Hall's slope.

Metamorphosis: Titian 2012, The Royal Ballet

Ismene Brown Sunday, 15 July 2012

The bells ring out for creativity in the Royal Ballet’s final production under its outgoing director, Monica Mason, and the ambition at least of the enterprise is hugely to be cheered, even if asking seven choreographers to work together is on a hiding to nothing.

Matthew Bourne's Play Without Words, Sadler's Wells

Ismene Brown Saturday, 14 July 2012

Sound the trumpets triumphantly - Matthew Bourne’s most original masterpiece has come out of hiding into full view, a giddy, sexy, diabolical confection that hovers on the edge of hellish, and deserves to become a global smash.

Stonehenge Fire Garden, Salisbury Plain

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 11 July 2012

Stonehenge, the monumental mystery of Britain’s past, decked out like a laundry yard with drying white vests and flowerpots scattered among its gigantic monoliths. It makes a most disconcerting image, and it is the precursive tableau that the public should not miss if they make the trek out to Salisbury Plain tonight or tomorrow for one of the Cultural Olympiad’s stranger installations. Get there before it all starts.

Wiesenland, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells

james Woodall Monday, 09 July 2012

Let us conclude, after London’s season of World Cities - 10 dance shows - that Pina Bausch was not a choreographer. She began 50 years ago in Essen as a ballet dancer and like so many dancers in that field got bored with the rules. When she took over ballet in Wuppertal in 1973, she clearly had rule-breaking in mind but also had something inside her head very different from what one might identify as the geometry of dance.