It's the name of the game that one does not necessarily appreciate all plans (or indeed how they crystallise out in practice) but I have to say that Sadler's Wells set a benchmark re new work/experiences and for where you want a progressive art to be.
Archive - October 2012
This is a work that is dark and deep, like a bottomless black pool requiring forensic exploration.
This work has some powerful moments, such as when the dancers play amongst the fallen bags, sliding joyfully across the floor. However, Weather does not quite reach the heights of some of Guerin’s recent works, something that is sure to disappoint many of her fans.
That said, the company is still on top form. The corps de ballet is flawlessly unified technically, stylistically and musically down to their eyelashes.
It's always been clear that Millepied is a man of intelligence and taste.
The programme included works both old and new but it was not an altogether successful mixture. The dancers looked most at home, and at their most sleek and impressive, in Faster, a work made on them this year by their Artistic Director, David Bintley, evoking the striving of competitors in the Olympics.
Jessica Lang's Lyric Pieces ...is light-as-a-feather work of the utmost good taste - in fact just plain gorgeous.
Dance students can participate in ‘Celebrating Dance 2012’ - a day of dance to be held at the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) on Sunday 11 November to fundraise for the Frank Freeman Scholarship fund.
Hubbe - handsome and captivating as ever in tight black jeans and an Errol Flynn mustache - assured the Works and Process audience that the famously elegiac Shades scene has not been tampered with...
Ratmansky’s vision of Cinderella is bracingly fresh, and the ballet’s harsh, urban setting and grotesque choreography seem suitably attuned to Prokofiev’s darkly sardonic score. His concept, however, does not succeed completely.
The Cuban schooling of Hopuy is impressive and his variation was expertly danced, including the trademark Cuban flicking over of the take-off leg in a jeté en tournant...
Opens on 23rd October with Swan Lake, followed by Nutcracker and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland - all live. For completeness also include details of the 6 Operas being transmitted.
An Act of Now is a violent production - physically, emotionally and conceptually. ...The material is challenging, both to watch and, no doubt, to perform.
36 pictures by Dave Morgan...
Tonight’s premiere of Ratmansky's newest work for American Ballet Theatre, Symphony #9, was cause for celebration. In fact, it left me feeling almost lightheaded, and terribly eager to see it again, as soon as possible.
The highlight of the gala was the seventieth-anniversary performance of Agnes De Mille’s Rodeo, preceded by a short film describing its creation, with archival footage of the hilariously histrionic, diminutive choreographer.
All up 'Labyrinth of Love' is a wonderful creative endeavour, a great looker, but an extra dash of audience accessibility is needed. We go "Wow", rather than "Wow, I really loved what that had to say"
27 pictures by Dave Morgan...
Shivalingappa first caught my eye at the 2007 Fall For Dance festival, where she danced Varnam, a Kuchipudi solo. I was immediately struck by her musicality, the power and precision of her footwork, and the absolute clarity of her movements. And to the grace of her upper body and a jump that seems to comes out of nowhere, light and airy as a cat’s.
...cut down to a single act and shown as part of a properly-balanced double or triple bill it could work beautifully, rather than sending me home feeling hungry.