★★★★✰ It's been a long time since I've seen a piece of dance theatre quite so moving and thought-provoking as Adult Female Dancer.
Archive - May 2021
★★★★✰ New York's World Music Institute are presenting their Dancing the Gods festival as a digital stream this year and with the 2 lead dancers filmed in India - Rama Vaidyanathan and Surupa Sen.
★★★✰✰ Overflow will certainly not let you escape into a nicer world with messages of hope and regeneration. It will however impress you with its sci-fi dystopian visual and aural landscape.
★★★★✰ LaTasha Barnes wanted Black dancers dedicated to contemporary Black vernaculars to also immerse themselves in the jazz dance world of the Lindy Hop. The very engaging Jazz Continuum is the result.
★★★✰✰ With works from Christopher Wheeldon (Within the Golden Hour), Kyle Abraham (Optional Family: a divertissement - a premiere) and Crystal Pite (The Statement & Solo Echo)
★★★★✰ It was a delight to watch artists perform who are no longer with the company, as well as many current dancers in the earlier days of their career...
★★★✰✰ With works from Yuri Possokhov (Senseless Kindness), Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui (Laid in Earth), Stina Quagebeur (Take Five Blues), Russell Maliphant (Echoes) and Arielle Smith (Jolly Folly)
★★★✰✰ Lady Blackshirt is a patchwork of miniature films overlaid in eight chapters, lasting just over an hour: sub-titled ‘A Meditation on Modernism and Extremism’...
Feature - The Royal Ballet School recently danced a 'lost' Ninette de Valois ballet, "The Arts of the Theatre", reconstructed by Anna Meadmore. Jann Parry with a full report on an interesting excavation of the early days of British ballet.
A quad bill featuring a premiere by Kyle Abraham (as yet unnamed) along with works by Crystal Pite and Christopher Wheeldon.
The intention of this wide-ranging guide is to "tell all" about ballet from training through to life in a professional company. Jann Parry with a thoughtful overview of the detail it covers...
★★★★✰ After months apart, Morris and his dancers have finally been reunited in the company’s studios. The result is Live From Brooklyn, a 45-minute program that includes a new work, Tempus Perfectum, set to Brahms...
We talk to Darcey Bussell about her upcoming British Ballet Charity Gala which takes place on the 3 June at the Royal Albert Hall and features an amazing array of dance talent from Ballet Black, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, New Adventures, Northern Ballet, Rambert, Scottish Ballet and The Royal Ballet...
★★★✰✰ A double bill with a re-run of Hans van Manen’s 5 Tangos paired with the premiere of Firebirds (based on the Stravinsky score), this new work having the rare distinction of being created by an all-woman team led by choreographer Marianna Venekei.
★★★★★ ...a satisfying film in which dance is treated as a work of art, like a painting or a sculpture that moves. New York City Ballet’s virtual spring gala is the most successful version of this approach I’ve seen.
★★★★★ Dawson states that the premise for his creation is about, “hope and humanity, about finding light in the darkness”. And he succeeds mostly because of the sheer beauty of the dancing, the shapes and patterns the dancers make...
★★★★✰ “Take Me Back,” makes you forget, for a half hour or so, that you are wearing a mask. Different dancers come to the fore, with voguing sashays or quick arm slices, breaking moves, individual, or simultaneous – startling and satisfying when a group is on the floor, revolving together...
★★★✰✰ While Sarasota Ballet’s audiences in Florida may be familiar with much of the Ashton repertoire (more so than many British ballet lovers), international subscribers to Sarasota’s digital offerings have been able to catch up with some little-seen gems.
★★★★✰ 'Jangdan: Conversation of the Breath' is the work of Kim So Ra, a virtuoso on the two-sided hourglass drum, the janggu, together with two fellow musicians, Hyun Seung Hun and Hong Ji Hye, and two Korean modern dancers, Kim Young Mi and Hong Kyeong Hwa.
Another week and another Scottish Ballet premiere as Nicholas Shoesmith's new short dance film, 'Odyssey', is unveiled on Tuesday 4 May. We talk to Shoesmith to find out all about it.