Russian State Ballet of Siberia – La Fille mal gardée – Basingstoke
★★★✰✰ The Siberian company performs its Fille mal gardée with good heart and neat feet.
Jonathan Burrows, Matteo Fargion & Hugo Glendinning – 52 Portraits – London
★★★✰✰ The portraits are probably not a way into dance for someone who wasn’t already interested – and it’s probably better to watch them in small doses. However, they do remind us of something rather lovely…
Royal Ballet / Royal Opera – Les Enfants Terribles – London
★★★✰✰ The story line becomes as labyrinthine as the ribbons of tape that criss-cross Paul’s bedroom.
5 Questions to Mavin Khoo – Artistic Director ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble, choreographer, rehearsal director
Malta’s national contemporary dance company, ŻfinMalta Dance Ensemble, are touring to the UK for the first time – we have a word with Artistic Director Mavin Khoo…
English National Ballet – Giselle – London
★★★✰✰ Elisa Badenes and Cesar Corrales delivered a good professional show, if it was not the runaway success I had perhaps hoped for.
New York City Ballet – The Times are Racing, The Shimmering Asphalt, Fearful Symmetries – New York
★★★✰✰ More than anything, Peck’s “The Times are Racing” reminded me of the movie Rebel Without a Cause. These kids are uneasy, but what is the object of their unease?
San Francisco Ballet – Haffner Symphony, Fragile Vessels (premiere), In the Countenance of Kings – San Francisco
★★★★✰ The company’s first regular-season commission from Czech choreographer Jiří Bubeníček, “Fragile Vessels”, is a 40-minute meditation on love, loss and reconciliation.
New York City Ballet – Stravinsky x Five bill – New York
★★★✰✰ Alongside George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins, one could argue that the third most important voice at New York City Ballet in the twentieth century was that of Igor Stravinsky.
Royal Ballet – Woolf Works – London
★★★✰✰ The ballet’s narrative interest depends on the dancer, and both performers are magnificent – different in tone and physicality, though not markedly so.
BODYTRAFFIC – Death Defying Dances, 3 Preludes, Private Games: Chapter One – New York
★★✰✰✰ BODYTRAFFIC, the Los Angeles-based contemporary dance troupe, drew a robust crowd to the Joyce on Friday night.
New York City Ballet – La Sonnambula, Prodigal Son, Firebird, Allegro Brillante, Swan Lake, Four Temperaments – New York
★★★★✰ Sara Mearns, who made her name as Swan Queen at the age of nineteen, is still the most thrilling Odette around.
Scottish Ballet – Hansel and Gretel – Glasgow
★★★★✰ …a great communal effort by the whole company and one that stretches out to embrace kids in the cities it plays to – showing new generations how relevant and effortlessly entertaining ballet can be.
English National Ballet – Giselle – London
★★★★✰ The magic in this production isn’t simply its bewitching ambience but also its harnessing of centuries-old themes in a way that resonates today.
Les Ballets de Monte Carlo – La Belle – Monte-Carlo
★★★★✰ Maillot has succeeded in giving perhaps the most authentic retelling of Perrault’s story in dance with his tale of love overcoming the darkest evil…
