At least there are some memorable performances to recall from 2021: at the beginning of the year none of us had any idea when we might sit in a theatre and watch live dance again...
Tag - Matthew Ball
★★★★★ Thanks to Yolande Yorke-Edgell and her company, Robert Cohan was able to continue creating dance works for performance up until his death in January this year at the age of 95...
The Frederick Ashton Foundation marked its tenth anniversary with an evening of rarely performed Ashton pieces and a specially commissioned film, Frederick Ashton: Links in the Chain, by Lynn Wake.
★★★✰✰ The latest Royal Ballet premiere is a full evening ballet from Wayne McGregor, using a cracking custom score from Thomas Adès...
★★★★✰ Francesca Hayward is entirely believable as a very young Juliet, overwhelmed by her first experience of falling in love.
★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
★★★★✰ Kevin O'Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, came on stage to welcome the return of a paying audience for what turned out to be the opening and closing live performance of the season...
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
As lockdown eases ballet is getting out of streaming from living rooms and into the big wide world - Jann Parry looks at six happenings/films involving dancers from Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet & The Royal Ballet
★★★★✰ 21 dance films, sourced from all over the globe and presented by Marquee TV in association with Screen.dance (Scotland’s Festival of dance on screen) and San Francisco Dance Film Festival.
★★★★✰ The singers had the lions' share of the concert, with just two pas de deux by Royal Ballet couples, Matthew Ball and Mayara Magri, Reece Clarke and Fumi Kaneko.
★★★★✰ 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.
"If you missed 'Men at the Barre - Inside the Royal Ballet': a look behind the scenes at the male ballet dancers in the company, then do take the time to catch up on BBC iPlayer."
★★★✰✰ In The Cellist, Cathy Marston has taken on a challenging subject for her first commission for the Royal Opera House stage: the real-life story of a much-loved musician Jacqueline Du Pré...
★★★★✰ The ballet works as a conflicted love story centred on the heroine, Tatiana. When Natalia Osipova dances the role, she brings home how Russian the character is.
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet's current production of The Sleeping Beauty, dating back to 2006, is a homage to Ninette de Valois and her faith that Marius Petipa's Imperial Russian ballet should be the flagship of her British company.
Lead Casting: Yasmine Naghdi and Matthew Ball. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★★ Quite some achievement by Pam Tanowitz, to have followed treasured works by Cunningham and Ashton with one that pays homage to both, yet stands on its own as her distinctive tapestry of dance.
Featuring works by Merce Cunningham, Frederick Ashton and Pam Tanowitz. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...