★★★★✰ Program 3 features all-British choreographers: Peter Wright, Peter Darrell, Christopher Wheeldon, Matthew Bourne and Kenneth MacMillan. The exception is a solo by American Dominic Walsh, created for his own contemporary dance company. ...Some of the selections are probably unfamiliar to American audiences, as well as to British ballet fans of a younger vintage.
Tag - Monotones II
★★★★✰ 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...
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★★✰ The title of the latest triple bill in the Linbury studio theatre is taken from The Observer's dance critic's review of the Merce Cunningham Company's arrival in Britain in 1964.
Pam Tanowitz, well known in New York, just created her first work outside the States - for the Royal Ballet. It's been a critical success and Jann Parry (who gave the work 5 stars) finds out what makes her tick and why so many directors are seeking Tanowitz out...
★★★★★ 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...
★★✰✰✰ After viewing Ashton on a bill with works by Ricardo Graziano and Christopher Wheeldon, I’m not worried about Ashton’s relevance nor his resonance with a future audience. ...Both the Graziano and Wheeldon posed some problems from what some might consider a “female” perspective.
★★★✰✰ One of this recurring festival’s strongest selling selling points is the serendipity of its pairings. You pay $15 and get a grab-bag of dance in return. You’re bound to like something.
Monotones II: Audiences are now accustomed to the manic acrobatic contortions of modern choreography, so it is rewarding to see the rigour with which the three performers (Marianela Nunez, Valeri Hristov and Edward Watson) control their elasticity.
After the long famine, Ashton’s ballets made a welcome return this week with the company’s triple bill under the umbrella title, The Dream.
I like McNally's sense of fun but I also like this more serious side because the movement is also fresh and unpredictable. Of all the ballet choreographers coming through I think hers is one of the most original voices.
Both as a tribute to Ashton and as a coming-out party, it’s hard to imagine how the festival could have gone better. The ballets are in good hands.
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories this last year...
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!
Closing the program is Kurt Jooss’s anti-war ballet from 1932,The Green Table, one of the greatest pieces of choreography ever created and still relevant after more than 80 years.
An important event yesterday – the Royal Opera House annual press conference – with Kevin O’Hare announcing his first season as incoming Royal Ballet Director. He takes over from Monica Mason in the summer. I found myself Tweeting before (on reading the press releases) and during the press conference – on #roh201213. Here is the stream in all its contorted Tweetiness and...
Not Trusting to Fate - The Frederick Ashton Foundation’s avowed purpose is to perpetuate the choreographer’s legacy. But to do so, it needs the co-operation of those to whom Ashton willed his ballets...