Jane Simpson has written for DanceTabs/ Balletco since its very early days in 1997. She contributed regularly to Dance Now for its last 10 years and wrote for the Yearbook of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (2000 - 2009); she writes a 'London Letter' for the Washington-based quarterly, Dance View. She is based in London and also makes several trips to Copenhagen each season.
Under are the articles written for DanceTabs. Reviews on Balletco
Royal Danish Ballet – La Ventana, Kermesse in Bruges – Copenhagen
In fact delight was the keynote of the whole evening …I was very happy to see the whole company reclaiming their ‘joy in dancing’, the Bournonville essence which is fundamentally what keeps these old ballets alive.
Royal Ballet – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – London
…though I don’t believe it’s a great work of art, there’s no denying that it’s fun.
Royal Danish Ballet – Dans2Go: Chroma, Unsung, Kingdom of the Shades – Copenhagen
The Royal Danish Ballet’s Dans2Go, year 3. As previously, the aim is to give newcomers a taste of different types of dance, at low prices…
Royal Ballet – Ashton Bill including Marguerite & Armand with Rojo and Polunin – London
But it was Rojo who really surprised me, with the most emotionally open performance I’ve ever seen from her. …a swansong, indeed: what a way to go!
Gudrun Bojesen – Royal Danish Ballet – Principal
Gudrun Bojesen, the Royal Danish Ballet’s leading classical ballerina, is at an interesting stage of her career…
Royal Ballet – The Firebird, In the Night, Raymonda Act lll – London
It’s the Royal Ballet’s varied and unique repertoire that has kept me loyal to the company through some very thin times as well as the golden seasons, and this programme is a nice example of what a flick through its back – catalogue can produce.
Royal Ballet – The Nutcracker – London
Most of the dancers on stage tonight were not even born when the Royal Ballet’ s current Nutcracker production was new, and many of the audience too may imagine that it’s been a feature of the Christmas season forever…
Book – Frederick Ashton’s Ballets by Geraldine Morris
What would he himself make of this book, I wonder? He’d be amazed, I should think, by the amount of detail he’d find, and possibly surprised by some of it…
Royal Danish Ballet – La Bayadere – Copenhagen
So far as I know, no major company has ever before attempted a time-shifted Bayadère, so Hübbe had the whole of history to pick from. He chose the later years of the British Raj…
Royal Ballet – Concerto, Las Hermanas, Requiem – London
It’s an interesting evening, showing both choreographer and company at their best and at somewhat less than that.
Danish Royal Ballet – The Golden Cockerel – Copenhagen
…cut down to a single act and shown as part of a properly-balanced double or triple bill it could work beautifully, rather than sending me home feeling hungry.
Royal Ballet – Swan Lake – London
And in the next act she (Nunez) did just that, giving us one of the best Odiles I remember seeing. She looked as if bamboozling innocently trusting princes was her favourite thing in the world, the most fun she’d ever had…
Royal Danish Ballet – Thomas Lund’s farewell: The Lesson/La Sylphide – Copenhagen
Several times during the evening I wondered how much anyone who happened never to have seen Lund before would have understood about him from this performance. They would have learnt about his peerless Bournonville technique, and about his ability to get under the skin of the character he’s playing…
Book – Here Today, Gone Tomorrow by Christina Gallea Roy
This is a fascinating story… an important one. Gallea relates the growth, and eventual decline, of the company – known originally as International Ballet Caravan and later as Alexander Roy Ballet Theatre – with an amazing amount of detail…
Book – Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist
Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist Edited by Richard Cave & Libby Worth Dance Books, Paperback 2012, 289 pages, illus., DVD £20.00 Dance Book publishers page Conference site Jann Parry report on the conference…
Desmond Kelly – Artistic Director Elmhurst and Governor of the Royal Ballet Companies
My nickname in BRB used to be Bastard – and something happened with Ballet Hoo! – I don’t know whether it’s my age, or the kids we worked with, but it made me realise that you can get the best out of dancers and students by coming in on a certain level and talking to them on a certain level – not always shouting. I do shout still, I do get very angry…
Paul Taylor Dance Company – 7 works over 2 bills – Paris
The seven works I saw over two nights started with Aureole and ended with Esplanade, and even in these less than perfect circumstances it’s impossible to resist the enchantment of these two masterpieces. Aureole especially seems to me the essence of Paul Taylor…
John Percival, 1927 – 2012: A personal appreciation
It’s a fortunate dance-goer who can discover a critic whose opinions she can trust – doubly fortunate if it’s a critic who sees and reports on more performances than any of the rest. It’s more than fifty years since I first found that I was turning to John Percival’s reviews before anyone else’s…
Royal Ballet – La Sylphide & Ballo della Regina – London
Balanchine famously described a choreographer’s job as being like a chef’s, and his Ballo della Regina perfectly fulfils the role of amuse-bouche in the Royal Ballet’s latest double bill, waking us up and sharpening our appetites for the more serious fare of Bournonville’s lovely La Sylphide. It’s the fourth ballet the company has tried out in this role and I think it’s the most successful.
Royal Ballet – La fille mal gardee – London
Every review of La Fille mal Gardée should start with an acknowledgement that, however excellent the performance may have been, the greatest credit belongs to Frederick Ashton, who more than 50 years ago put this happy masterpiece together in a few weeks of cheerful collaboration with his dancers.
