dance

Dance GB, ENB/ NDCWales/ Scottish Ballet, Royal Naval College

Ismene Brown Friday, 06 July 2012

It was one of the better Olympic culture ideas that Wales, Scotland and England should combine in a Dance GB night, with the three “national” dance companies all creating something new. But a risk that had little Wales holding its breath in fear, up against the might of English National Ballet and Scottish Ballet. And who would have expected the 12-strong National Dance Company Wales to emerge as unexpected heroes?

Palermo, Palermo, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells

Sarah Kent Tuesday, 03 July 2012

The curtain rises onto a wall that totally blocks the view. A long silence... then, without warning, the wall collapses – to cheers of delight from the audience. For the rest of the evening, the dancers have to pick their way over rubble strewn across the middle ground that restricts free movement to strips of open space at the front and rear of the stage.

Birthday Offering/ A Month in the Country/ Les Noces, Royal Ballet

Ismene Brown Monday, 02 July 2012

A birthday offering, a wedding celebration - with that, and one further creative collaboration ahead, Dame Monica Mason makes her farewell as director of the Royal Ballet after 10 years. The last programme of favourites from the store cupboard must always be a tricky one, but true to form the mistress of the great occasion (anniversaries have been a mainstay of her programming) picked rituals and ceremonies that stressed company ethos and values.

Comment

The Grand Tour/ Faster/ The Dream, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Birmingham Hippodrome

Ismene Brown Thursday, 28 June 2012

Cafés, ballets, it’s all the same to the mighty petty bullyboys of the London Olympics, who have not only devised two of the most revolting mascots in Olympic history (the one-eyed slugs Wenlock and Mandeville) but also employed teams of apparatchiks in your name and mine to compel artists and small businesses not to infringe their entirely dubious copyright in the Olympic motto.

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Nefés, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells

Ismene Brown Monday, 25 June 2012

Istanbul, even more than Rome, is the point in the world where tectonic plates of civilisations collide: Europe, Arabia and Asia, Muslim Istanbul and Christian Constantinople, fundamentalists and secularists, 21st-century women and 15th-century men. The smells of hookahs, roses and fish are part of the magic the city has from time immemorial radiated, beckoning traders and dealers, visitors and adventurers, to a place of shifting histories and irresistible mystery.

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Bamboo Blues, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican Theatre

Sarah Kent Saturday, 23 June 2012

Premiered in 2007, Bamboo Blues was generated by a visit to Kolkata; and with the simplest of means, designer Peter Pabst conjures the vast landscapes of India.

Der Fensterputzer, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler’s Wells

Judith Flanders Tuesday, 19 June 2012

It may be that designer Peter Pabst is the unsung hero of Tanztheater Wuppertal’s “World Cities” extravaganza. When the lights go down at Sadler’s Wells for Der Fensterputzer (The Window-washer), the stage is dominated by a vast mountain of glowing red flowers, over four metres high, nine metres across, looming out of a modernistic black-box stage. It is a moment of pure, surging drama.

Ten Chi, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Barbican Theatre

Ismene Brown Monday, 18 June 2012

The Japanese dance public is overwhelmingly female, so it’s not surprising that Pina Bausch’s paean to Saitama, Ten Chi, is so girly.

South Bank Show: The Male Dancer, Sky Arts 1

Ismene Brown Monday, 18 June 2012

Male dancers are a puzzle to British audiences, where they are an uncomplicated, taken-for-granted treasure in Latin or Slav countries. I point this out gratuitously, as it's a point that wasn't touched upon by Melvyn Bragg's film about three iconic men of ballet, Rudolf Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Carlos Acosta.

...Como El Musguito..., Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's Wells

Sarah Kent Wednesday, 13 June 2012

If you are tired of life, tired of London, or even tired of love, muster the remaining fibres of your frazzled being and do whatever it takes to get tickets for ...como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si... or any of the other performances in the Pina Bausch "World Cities" retrospective on at Sadler’s Wells and the Barbican over the next four weeks.