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Under are the articles written for DanceTabs. Reviews on Balletco
Dorrance Dance – ETM: Double Down – London
★★★★✰ The thunderous finale pulls all the threads together with the entire cast on stage playing and dancing in a riotous sonic adventure.
Sadler’s Wells Elixir Festival – KnowBody II – London
★★★✰✰ Mats Ek’s “Axe” could be the beginning to a new Scandi Noir TV series. There is a man, an axe, a huge pile of wood that he starts to chop with repressed intensity and a visibly distressed wife. It doesn’t look like it will end well.
Akram Khan Company – Desh – London
★★★★★ This is Khan’s own personal story, but it achieves a much wider resonance about how we can learn to reconcile ourselves to our past, and to acknowledge where and what we come from as we mature.
Fevered Sleep – Men and Girls Dance – London
★★★★✰ Men and Girls Dance is a touching and joyful demonstration of optimism about us humans in an increasingly bleak age.
Aakash Odedra – Echoes, I Imagine – London
★★★★✰ At first sight the two works in Aakash Odedra’s solo show at Sadler’s Wells Lilian Baylis Studio could hardly be more unalike.
DeNada Dance Theatre – Ham and Passion: Passionaria, Young Man!, O Maria – London
★★★✰✰ Some titles for triple bills can be generic or aspirational rather than specific, but “Ham and Passion” is exactly what you get in this programme from DeNada Dance Theatre.
Memorable Performances of 2016 – London
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories from the past year…
National Ballet of China – The Peony Pavilion – London
★★★✰✰ Peony Pavilion has become a signature work for the National Ballet of China and it’s easy to see why it has come back.
James Wilton Dance – Leviathan – London
★★★✰✰ A piece of dance that takes Moby-Dick as its inspiration has to be worth seeing. Lynette Halewood at The Place in London to see “Leviathan” performed by James Wilton Dance…
New English Ballet Theatre – Quint-Essential bill of Five New Ballets – London
★★★✰✰ Some of these pieces are more successful than others but the dancers seize the opportunities with relish…
Eastman / Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui – Fractus V – London
★★★★✰ The work itself is a statement of faith that collaboration is better than confrontation. Each dancer has a powerful presence but Cherkaoui has forged a remarkable unity from these disparate elements…
Sonia Sabri Company – Salaam – London
★★★✰✰ The evening as a whole had many beautiful moments with a good fusion of music and dance in a relaxed and informal setting.
Hege Haagenrud – Use My Body While It’s Still Young – London
★★★★✰ Dance Umbrella brings to The Place an unusually thoughtful and touching work. In Use My Body While It’s Still Young, Norwegian choreographer Hege Haagenrud takes a cool and unflinching look at the unfashionable subject of ageing…
Jean Abreu Dance – Labirinto (A Thread) – London
Jean Abreu Dance Labirinto (based on A Thread) ★★★✰✰ London, Horniman Museum and Gardens 28 July 2016 www.jeanabreudance.com www.horniman.ac.uk The Horniman Museum and Gardens contains eclectic collections of artefacts from around the world,…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Wink, The Moor’s Pavane, The Shakespeare Suite – Birmingham
★★★✰✰ Jessica Lang’s Wink is an attractive piece, well designed and well made with a clear structure.
English National Ballet – Swan Lake – London
★★★★✰ The entire company looks strong and well disciplined.
Lost Dog / Ben Duke – Paradise Lost (lies unopened beside me) – London
★★★★✰ The work is proof that inventiveness is more important than a huge budget.
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan – Songs of the Wanderers – London
★★★★✰ The entire work is a kind of meditation, a slow ritual or pilgrimage for its cast across mounds of rice that could be mountains or rivers.
Alexander Whitley Dance Company – Pattern Recognition – London
★★★✰✰ It’s a well-structured and paced piece, a successful integration of its different components, at times quite literally dazzling…
The 7 Fingers – TRIPTYQUE: Anne and Samuel, Variations 9.81, Nocturnes – London
★★★✰✰ It’s an interesting idea to see how successfully the dance makers can use the different skills of the circus performers, and how the performers respond…
