dance theatre
Edinburgh Fringe 2019 review: BirthFriday, 09 August 2019
Physical theatre company Theatre Re are virtually Fringe royalty these days, with a several-year history of fine shows under their belts, plus success internationally and at the London Mime Festival. And judging by their assured and richly resonant... 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? With its tally of dead and dying babies, gouged eye sockets and flayed skin, Arthur Pita’s latest dance-drama vehicle for the phenomenal Natalia Osipova,... Read more... |
Bronx Gothic, Young Vic review - fervid intensityMonday, 10 June 2019
It’s hard, and finally fruitless to attempt to describe Okwui Okpokwasili’s Bronx Gothic in conventional terms of genre: combining elements of dance and theatre, this visceral solo performance transcends both. It engages with frantic movement at the... Read more... |
Tribe//Still I Rise, Brighton Festival 2019 review - an evening of poetic movementWednesday, 22 May 2019
Maya Angelou’s iconic poem Still I Rise is a good starting point for many things in life. But it’s a particularly good beginning for a piece of contemporary dance choreography, and Victoria Fox has done a great job of bringing the poet’s words to... Read more... |
Wise Children, Old Vic review - Emma Rice in fun if not quite top-flight formSaturday, 20 October 2018
"What could possibly go wrong?" The question ends the first act of Wise Children, the debut venture from the new company birthed by a director, Emma Rice, who must have asked herself precisely that query at many points in recent years.... Read more... |
Poet in da Corner, Royal Court review - mind-blowing energy plus plus plusWednesday, 26 September 2018
There was once a time when grime music was very angry, and very threatening, but that seems a long time ago now. Today, Dizzee Rascal is less a herald of riot and revolt, and more of a national treasure, exuding charm from every pore, even if his... Read more... |
Edinburgh Festival 2018 reviews: Ulster American / Cold BloodMonday, 06 August 2018
Ulster American ★★★★★ David Ireland’s brand new, brutally incendiary black comedy gleefully tosses a grenade into any lazy liberal sensibilities at the festival (and, let’s face it, there are plenty of those). Race, gender, rape, prejudice... Read more... |
Elizabeth, Barbican review - royal romance under scrutinyThursday, 17 May 2018
Everyone knows that Elizabeth I was a monarch of deep intelligence and sharp wit. Fewer know how good she was at the galliard. This was a virile, proud, demandingly athletic dance, usually performed by the men at courtly gatherings, and the fact... Read more... |
NoFit State Circus present Lexicon, Brighton Festival review - a wild eye-boggling jamboreeSaturday, 05 May 2018
When an acquaintance heard my first review of the Brighton Festival was a circus event they snorted, “Oh dear.” It’s strange; for a couple of decades there’s been a default setting among broad swathes of otherwise artistically-inclined Boho sorts:... Read more... |
Picks of Brighton Festival 2018 by writer-director Neil BartlettThursday, 03 May 2018
Director, playwright and novelist Neil Bartlett has been making theatre and causing trouble since the 1980s. He made his name with a series of controversial stark naked performances staged in clubs and warehouses, then went on to... Read more... |
Macbeth, Wilton's Music Hall review - incisive and thrilling dance theatreThursday, 01 March 2018
There’s more than a touch of vaunting ambition in the idea of turning the Scottish Play into dance theatre. Without spoken text, named scenes or even a printed synopsis, it falls to choreography and direction to speak for them all. Thus the most... Read more... |
Cinderella, Sadler's Wells review - Matthew Bourne puts Cinderella through the BlitzThursday, 21 December 2017
Even if Matthew Bourne were never to choreograph another step, he could fill theatres in perpetuity by rotating old stock. Cinderella, made in 1997, was the follow-up to his break-out hit Swan Lake but, never quite happy with it, he reworked it in... Read more... |
