The dancers of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba are a fabulously talented bunch and it’s a pleasure to see them back at Sadler’s Wells. It would be even more of a pleasure if all the choreography in their programme was the same quality as the dancing.
Archive - May 2012
For the twenty years his company has been around, Wells's choreography has incorporated contact-improvisation, sports paraphernalia (balls of every size from ping pong to basketball, boxing gloves, skateboards), music from classical to rock, often in rapid succession, juggling and gymnastics.
One of Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Principal dancers, Matthew Lawrence, is currently just as busy in a gymnastics hall as he is on the stage as he works on his latest exciting creation – a routine for the Welsh and five times British champion gymnast Frankie Jones...
Every May for the past nine years the SFIAF presented an amazing array of live music, theater and dance from all over the world. Most of these performers would never be seen here in San Francisco if it weren’t for festival director Andrew Wood’s fanatic desire to bring as many diverse groups as the limited budget will allow.
The actual Roméo and Juliette sections of Waltz’s work are captivating, but when they stop dancing, it’s harder to remain invested in what’s going on around them. Even in an abstract version of Roméo et Juliette, Romeo and Juliet remain the focal points.
As Manon, Dupont started out as sweet and innocent. Overall, her Manon seemed almost empty, like a vessel for people to put eroticism into or to act upon.
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.
27 pictures by Dave Morgan...
If you prefer ballet in a more intimate space with easily accessible choreography, energetically performed by dedicated dancers ...you might want to check out Smuin Ballet which has come a long way from its original roots.
Grand Rapids Ballet Company Black Swan White Swan Grand Rapids, Peter Martin Wege Theatre 12 May 2012 www.grballet.com Save Tchaikovsky’s brilliant original score there was little choreographer Mario Radacovsky’s psychological ballet Black Swan White Swan had in common with traditional productions of Swan Lake. No feather-adorned tutus, no clack of pointe shoes hitting the stage floor and no love...
...with Cojocaru the steps are sublimated into the character and the situation. She seems to be experiencing the ballet anew, moment by moment, with the audience. No surprise, then, that her mad scene is hypnotic, and changes from performance to performance...
For its second Choreographic LAB, DanceEast is seeking four choreographers and four composers with a minimum of three years experience in making work in a range of genres. This is an intensive two week residential LAB...
Rambert... offers a mix of new commissions with rarely-seen work from their archives. Some items had much more impact than others, though not necessarily the ones you might imagine from the programme.
Lubovitch’s signature ...a style whose free-flowing, cascading and highly musical movement qualities appear as effortless to dance as beautiful.
Baryshnikov, now 64, still moves with style and finesse, but the choreography doesn’t offer any opportunities beyond a pseudo-Spanish cliché.
On 24 May CCN Ballet de Lorraine of Nancy will premiere “La Création du Monde, 1923-2012” for the KVS Festival in Brussels. Our re-creation of the original Ballets Suédois production is the centrepiece for a new work by Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula.
27 Pictures by Dave Morgan
The 16 entrants competing for The Place Prize for dance, sponsored by Bloomberg, have been awarded a total commission fund of £100,000.
I think it's safe to say that neither of the new works knocked the planet off its axis...
If this were a danced game of “Call My Bluff” then Linehan provides a 45-minute description of the word ‘Aporia’. But, if anyone turned up expecting to see zombies, they would have been very disappointed.