Washington Ballet – Balanchine + Ashton quad bill – Washington
★★★✰✰ The Washington Ballet new program titled Balanchine + Ashton showcased four works by the two great choreographers, who “forever shaped our art form,” as the company’s artistic director, Julie Kent, put it in her opening remarks.
Alina Cojocaru – Alina at Sadler’s Wells – London
★★★★✰ Alina Cojocaru’s choice of works for her brief season at Sadler’s Wells provided an insight into her priorities as she reflected on her career: live music-making and dance-making that has something to say.
San Francisco Ballet – Dance Innovations, Big Hunger (premiere) bill – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ There were parts I adored and elements that didn’t resonate as much.
Gallery – Viviana Durante Company, Isadora Now triple bill
Featuring Dance of the Furies, Five Brahms Waltzes in the Manner of Isadora Duncan & Unda. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou.
Kate Prince and Sting – Message in a Bottle – London
★★★✰✰ The idea of setting a story about a refugee family to the songs of Sting was inevitably an enforced marriage of his diverse lyrics with a narrative for which they were never intended.
Paul Taylor Dance Company – Concertiana, Company B, Esplanade – San Francisco
★★★★✰ Paul Taylor Dance Company shone in the two older works on the program, Esplanade and Company B.
The Royal Ballet – The Cellist (premiere), Dances at a Gathering – London
★★★✰✰ In The Cellist, Cathy Marston has taken on a challenging subject for her first commission for the Royal Opera House stage: the real-life story of a much-loved musician Jacqueline Du Pré…
Shanghai Ballet – Swan Lake – New York
★★★★✰ It’s comforting to know that at even my advanced age I can still be confounded even by hoary old Swan Lake.
Acosta Danza – Up Close bill – London
★★★✰✰ This was indeed a case of Up Close and personal with five intimate pieces variously dosed with Cuban fire and flair…
Gallery – Royal Ballet in The Cellist and Dances at a Gathering
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
American Ballet Theatre – Giselle – Washington
★★★★✰ I saw two performances; each of them demonstrated why Giselle is still so popular even 180 years after the ballet’s premiere.
Gallery – Acosta Danza in Up Close: Mundo Interpretado and Two
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Anne Teresa De Keersmaker / Rosas – Mitten Wir in Leben Sind – New York
★★★✰✰ The dance is spare and pedestrian, as is De Keersmaeker’s way, and lasts two hours, without intermission. And yet it’s not really a challenge to experience it all in one sitting.
Gallery – Russell Maliphant & Dana Fouras in The Space Between (Maliphantworks3)
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
San Francisco Ballet – Program 2, Classical Re(Vision) bill – San Francisco
★★★★✰ San Francisco Ballet’s Program 2 was dubbed Classical Re(Vision) – a remembering of and reconnection with choreography in SFB’s existing repertory catalogue.
Russell Maliphant – Maliphantworks3: The Space Between, Film One & Two, Duet – London
★★★★✰ In this magical programme of two duets and two short films, Maliphant is investigating weightlessness – not so much defying gravity as conjuring its non-existence.
Dutch National Ballet – Frida – Amsterdam
★★★★✰ This was much more than my expectation of an update to Broken Wings. Part prequel, part sequel; it now stands proudly alone as an excellent new addition to the Dutch ballet repertoire.
Interview: Trey McIntyre on creating The Big Hunger for San Francisco Ballet
Trey McIntyre talks to Claudia Bauer about creating “The Big Hunger” for San Francisco Ballet – to some particularly devilish Prokofiev it explores the little and big hungers of life and is premiered this week, on 13 February 2020.
