Other years have been more exciting, I think, but this one has had its share of remarkable performances, including a few thrilling ones. Here, in no particular order, are the ones that really stood out, for one reason or another.
Archive - December 2018
★★★★✰ Now that we are all one more Nutcracker nearer death, as weary critic Richard Buckle used to bemoan, the Royal Ballet has given us a wintry bonne bouche of ballets to savour.
Semperoper Ballett Dresden were another new visitor in the summer, with a programme of Forsythe works, some not seen here before. But Forsythe is a theme this year in himself.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ I look forward to the changes inevitably coming to BRB, but I can't believe any new director will turn their back on such repertoire gems as La fille mal gardee and their Peter Wright Nutcracker.
★★★★✰ I’m a Nutcracker fan. And I’m a fan of San Francisco Ballet’s current production, choreographed in 2004 by Artistic Director and Principal Choreographer Helgi Tomasson...
★★★★✰ The cast I saw at the first performance of this year's Christmas touring season were the best (Ugly) Step-Sisters I've ever seen - take a bow Constance Devernay and Aisling Brangan.
★★★✰✰ Come hell or high water, George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker will return to New York City Ballet, filling the theatre night after night. Balanchine made a ballet built to last, and it has not disappointed.
★★★★✰ Performed by a cast of seventeen children ranging from ages 5 – 15, Forced Entertainment’s delightfully humorous and poignant work reveals how adults shape children through their projection of values and beliefs.
★★★★✰ Austin McCormick’s Company XIV continues to maintain the highest bar in balletic, baroque burlesque.
★★★★✰ Matthew Bourne has reworked his famous "Swan Lake" and it's now touring. Graham Watts wrestles with iconic and uber definitions in a long look at a much-loved work.
With Rina Kanehara and Jeffrey Cirio in the lead roles. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
To celebrate 10 year of live relays the Royal Opera House is hosting a Cinema Festival of past works in the newly rebuilt Linbury Studio Theatre. Jann Parry was there for the screening of Ashton's Sylvia (recorded in 2005) and which included Darcey Bussell reminiscing about dancing the lead role...
★★★★✰ Luke Brown Dance’s For You I Long the Longest is an intense and intimate work that needs to be experienced in a small, contained theatre.
★★★★✰ Wright's ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
★★★★✰ Noetic was created in 2014 for the company by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui working with his frequent collaborator sculptor Antony Gormley.
★★★★✰ Sidi Larbi Cherkaouis’s work is full of surprises. Icon, first premiered in 2016 is another fruitful collaboration between Anthony Gormley and Cherkaoui in which clay moulds both the theme and the dancers.
Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Lazarus, Revelations ★★★★✰ New York, City Center 30 November 2018 www.alvinailey.org www.nycitycenter.org Forward to Ailey In March of 1958, Alvin Ailey presented his first evening of dance, at the 92nd Street Y. Sixty years on, the company is going strong, having survived the death of its founder in 1989 and the successful transfer of leadership from Ailey to...