This is not a DVD for casual enjoyment but it is a must-buy for anyone enthused by dance tradition and culture, students and teachers of contemporary dance and anyone with a strong academic interest...
Author - Graham Watts
Nothing in contemporary dance is more guaranteed to provoke controversy than the Place Prize, now returning for its fifth edition, organised by the excellent team at The Place...
A very enjoyable evening, which raised over £40,000, for which huge thanks to Swarovski and other sponsors and donors...
A 40-hour round trip to watch a ballet gala on the other side of the world might be seen as a trifle obsessive by some and perhaps it is. But galas tend to be two a penny these days and this one was certainly very different, both in terms of being in aid of a unique and wonderful cause and in the spectacular diversity of remarkable dancing...
All in all, this was a programme that delivered what Karen Pilkington-Miksa and her team set out to achieve for which she (and they) deserve our considerable applause. ...NEBT allows one more throw of the die but these young dancers still need a “double 6” to win contracts for more sustainable jobs.
Pina Bausch’s particular brand of dance theatre owns many characteristics that are reiterated again and again throughout her work. The balance of these motifs changed over the years but the act of breaching the fourth wall is generally present.
Once again, the performers of Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch win over the audience with an apparently effortless ease.... Anna Wehsarg – a gorgeous statuesque redhead with legs that go on forever - can just walk on the stage, gazing into the audience and she has me captured.
Underpinning all of these familiar devices is the remarkable, intoxicating charisma of this extended family of performers, many of whom have been with the company for 30+ years. They continue to represent, with a comfortable faultless ease, Bausch’s unique cultural legacy...
I have had some of the best dreams ever while wide awake and watching Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. The company conjures imagery that no conscious mind seems capable of assembling.
I have a feeling that there may be a musical in here good enough to match the strength of the comedy and set design; if the level of the bar of song and dance can be raised to make a better impact against this over-bearing story.
Soulier has created two thoughtful and captivating dance works from the ingenious simplicity of systematically cataloguing the building blocks of ballet and then having some deconstructive fun by shifting these basic elements around.
If this were a danced game of “Call My Bluff” then Linehan provides a 45-minute description of the word ‘Aporia’. But, if anyone turned up expecting to see zombies, they would have been very disappointed.
The dancers and musicians of Ballet Revolución are superb and this will be a fun evening for anyone who wants to see a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation album brought to life by K-Tel in a toe-tapping cabaret dance show.
They all get a grade A pass from the ROH2 finishing school; with a little more attention to the fine detail, tightening up the concept and allowing more dance to flow, it would have been a full house of A stars.
The excellence of Tennant & Lowe’s score was always evident but the main impetus for this new, improved ballet is a greater integration of choreography, music, designs and video animation out of which emerges a more holistic package.
There is a refreshing honesty and endeavour to Scottish Dance Theatre, which this programme – surely crying out to be sub-titled ‘Love & Dogs’ - showcased splendidly.
Across all three works, the art of set and costume designs, video projections and lighting vied with an almost equal intensity of image-creation with the music and choreography... It was all too much to absorb in a single sitting.
Taking notes at a performance by Richard Alston's dancers is - for me, at least - a pointless occupation. Descriptive words and points of reference fly past in an unending stream, like Canada Geese migrating for the winter: start writing and you are never likely to stop!
Somova is going to become one of the world's greatest dancers within a very few years and it is a great honour to have been able to watch the progress of her early career.
As has happened so often before, this collaboration by two individuals who are outstanding innovators in their own art, didn't quite add up to the sum total of that brilliance.