★★★★✰ DanceAfrica is a welcome reminder of the uniquely universal powers of dance and music.
Archive - May 2018
★★★✰✰ Xenos, which apparently means “stranger” or, more aptly for this piece, “foreigner”, is a tangled mass of many things but, above all, it seems to be an essay on loneliness.
★★★★✰ Roberto Bolle, who played his usual striking Albrecht, responded to Seo with nuance and subtlety. The same goes for how Seo revealed Giselle’s madness...
★★★✰✰ Brandstrup keeps so many options open that the narrative thread of Life is a Dream is hard to pin down, even if you have read the programme notes and mugged up the 1635 play of the same name.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ After a week of Giselle, during which Natalia Osipova and David Hallberg had their much-awaited re-match, the company began its season in earnest on May 21, with a spring gala that included two new works and excerpts from a third...
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or “tomorrow’s stars” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is on the 11 June and ahead of the that we talk to the finalists – Precious Adams, Fernando Carratalá Coloma, Giorgio Garrett, Daniel McCormick, Francesca Velicu and Connie Vowles...
Life is a Dream is Kim Brandstrup's new work for Rambert. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Was she passionate as well as imperious? Her own letters and poems suggest so: contemporary accounts by others are not to be trusted. Her position of power in turbulent times generated a lot of fake news...
★★★★★ Liam Scarlett has devised a visual and emotional treat for audiences, fully justifying Kevin O'Hare's faith in him as a director and choreographer.
★★★✰✰ Artistic Director and Founder Jodi Lomask describes Capacitor as a “dance, cirque, sculpture company that often works with scientists..." The program excerpted seven works created from 2000 to 2014.
★★★★✰ Two works by up-and-coming female Korean choreographers hint at South Korea’s progressive and rich dance culture.
★★★★✰ It was a good night for Afternoon of a Faun, in particular. Chase Finlay, débuting in the role of the young dancer sensually lolling about a ballet studio, brought back the eroticism this ballet often lacks.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ This excellent ballet is clearly a “keeper” and a work I would like to see again and again.
"I knew that I had to seize my only chance to have a ballet career. Masha Mukhamedov agreed to teach me privately six days a week for ten months..."
★★✰✰✰ The dancing feels surprisingly lifeless given the fiery potential of the subject matter. Instead of engaging with the text’s furious, pitiful laments, it gives the impression of simply occurring alongside them...
★★★✰✰ The good news is that Queen of Spades is a good-looking crowd pleaser and the RDB dancers look fantastic in it - I can't emphasise that enough. Also good that it's a step up from his last commission, Frankenstein - thank goodness, really.
★★★★✰ The centenary celebration bills are more than enough to give a sense of Robbins' breadth, theatrical savvy, stylistic curiosities, and, perhaps most unique of all, his ability to present dancers as human beings onstage.