Amy Pearl's lockdown has been defined by NDT who she saw in NY just before lockdown and just caught up with again as they danced live at their home theatre for the first time and streamed the show to the world - a show which included a world premiere by Medhi Walerski and work by Crystal Pite...
Tag - Beethoven
Dutch National Ballet, under director Ted Brandsen, have made a splendid response to COVID-19, streaming 8 new digital dances in the last 3 months. Graham Watts on many interesting and absorbing works, varying from ★★✰✰✰ to ★★★★★
★★★★✰ Cathy Marston has achieved much in bringing the life of Jacqueline du Pré to the ballet stage and perhaps one of the things that becomes even clearer with repeated viewings, is that the music and the dance are inextricably linked.
★★★✰✰ Once again, Osipova gave it her all – and Osipova’s all is quite something to behold.
★★★★✰ It is all too easy to assume that the first triple bill of the Royal Ballet's autumn season celebrates its creative heritage from the 1960s. In fact, two of the ballets were made for other companies...
★★★✰✰ In the event, the levels of polish and invention were quite remarkable given the circumstances.
★★✰✰✰ Cas Public’s 9, now at the Linbury Theatre is a curious mix, big ideas but flawed execution.
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration...
★★★✰✰ No trade description problems, here. This was exactly what it said on the tin: Natalia Osipova performing pure dance, enhanced only by recorded music and lighting designs varying from the merest of subtle tints to an explosion of floodlights...
★★★✰✰ This summer's showcase of English National Ballet School's students was the first under its new director, Carlos Valcarcel... The Wimbledon programme consisted of two creations by him, two by students, and excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty as a conclusion.
★★★✰✰ Within this potpourri of Graeme Murphy’s works, the highlight was "Grand", a charming and poignant tribute he created in 2005 for his mother, a pianist, who died the previous year.
★★★✰✰ All was danced with the quiet focus, lucidity, and unfussy delivery that characterize the company. No attention-grabbing fireworks...
★★★★✰ Roberts’ "Members Don’t Get Weary" is very much a mature work with a strong emotional charge and esthetic signature.
★★★★✰ How many ways can you hear the same piece of music? This inspired programme by Lyon Opera Ballet suggested, with elegant simplicity, that there are as many ways to hear something as there are people to hear it.
After a few years below the radar Vanessa Fenton has been quietly bouncing back choreographically and this month presented her own double bill at Siobhan Davies Dance Studies and once again contributed a piece to the Royal Ballet's latest Draft Works bill.
★★★✰✰ It’s a somber and dark story; yet in Neumeier’s hands it gets even darker. Don’t expect Disney’s happily-ever-after – this Little Mermaid is certainly not for children.
★★★★★ One cannot help but observe that while the programmes of other companies both hit and miss, in terms of their critical appreciation and popular appeal, ENB is continually raising the bar...
★★★✰✰ Twyla Tharp is a kind of dance wizard – steps pour out of her like torrents in a waterfall.
★★★✰✰ The beefiest work on the program was a New York premiere, Thousand Yard Stare, a work honoring war veterans...
One of the go-to international choreographers, particularly if you want something arresting and unusual, is Alexander Ekman. His "Cacti", appropriately featuring a stage full of Cacti, is about to be presented by Royal New Zealand Ballet and Sydney Dance Company - Valerie Lawson catches up with a dance maverick...