Dance Writer/Critic. Member of the Critics' Circle, Chairman of the Dance Section and National Dance Awards Committee. Writes for leading dance magazines & websites - in UK, Europe, USA, Japan & cyberspace. Graham is based in London.
Under are the articles written for DanceTabs. Reviews on Balletco
An Evening with Namron – From Asphalt to Maple Wood
For around 80 minutes, Namron entertained his audience, largely comprising past and present luminaries of London contemporary dance, with stories and reminiscences, often breaking into movement, before finishing with a brief question & answer session…
Akram Khan Company – Xenos – London
★★★✰✰ 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.
Northern Ballet – Jane Eyre – London
★★★✰✰ This excellent ballet is clearly a “keeper” and a work I would like to see again and again.
National Dance Company Wales – Folk, Atalay, Tundra – London
★★★★✰ NDCW comprises a rich mix of performers, collectively hailing from six countries (although, surprisingly, none appear to have any Welsh heritage). What is even more surprising is that all bar one have joined in the past nine months…
DeNada Dance Theatre – TORO: Beauty and the Bull – London
★★★★✰ This is a work that is sinister, in mood, and vivid, in style. It works on many levels of ingenious allusion…
James Finnemore, Alleyne Dance – TERRA, A Night’s Game – London
James Finnemore: TERRA Alleyne Dance: A Night’s Game ★★★✰✰ London, The Place 24 April 2018 www.jamesfinnemore.co.uk www.alleynedance.com For some reason, the intended (or, at least, promoted) order of this double bill was reversed…
English National Ballet – Akram Khan’s Giselle – on cinema release
★★★★★ A total of 150 cinemas will show the ballet, which was filmed at the Liverpool Empire, in October 2017
Richard Alston Dance Company – Mid Century Modern, Carnaval, Cut and Run – London
★★★★★ It must be tempting to get carried away by sentiment when it comes to celebrating both a 70th birthday and fifty years as a choreographer in a programme that also marks the departure of a special muse.
Neon Dance – Sadler’s Wells Wild Card bill – London
★★★✰✰ All-in-all, it was a strange and eclectic evening, fluctuating from the sublime to the excruciatingly boring. …It has encouraged me to see more of Neon Dance whenever the chance arises.
Alain Platel & Fabrizio Cassol – Requiem pour L. – London
✰✰✰✰✰ I have to ask how one associates a star rating with a performance in which the largest, continuing visual image is a close-up, slow motion film of an actual death.
Germán Cornejo – Tango After Dark – London
★★★★★ I cannot imagine that partnered dance gets any better than this.
Gala Flamenca La Chana – Goddess of Compás – London
★★★★✰ Rarely have I witnessed a prolonged standing ovation midway through a show but it happened here to acknowledge the legendary gypsy bailaora from Barcelona, known as La Chana.
Carmen Linares, Arcángel & Marina Heredia – Tempo of Light – London
★★★★★ This was flamenco puro in its most fabulous form, dominated – as it should be – by the voice, led by three of the most celebrated of today’s star flamenco singers. It doesn’t get much better.
Peeping Tom – Mother (Moeder) – London
★★★★✰ Mother was an absorbing 70 minutes of performance art. Mothers were never exactly to the fore and yet – in many respects – they were always apparent…
Les Ballets de Monte – The Taming of the Shrew – Monte Carlo
★★★★✰ Maillot’s work is generally replete with a sense of irony and eroticism and Shakespeare gave him enormous scope for both!
English National Ballet – Le Jeune Homme et la Mort, La Sylphide – London
★★★★✰ One great privilege of Rojo being both director and dancer must be the opportunity to choose her own partners and this year’s returning guest is Ivan Vasiliev…
Yacobson Ballet – Don Quixote – St. Petersburg
★★★★✰ Kobborg has deconstructed the work; mixing up the narrative’s building blocks before reassembling them in a masterpiece of balance that remains recognisably traditional but is also refreshingly new.
New Adventures – Matthew Bourne’s Cinderella – London
★★★✰✰ While the production is supremely stylish and the characters well-observed with expressive and romantic choreography, the narrative is padded out in order to fill the music, particularly where traditional elements of “Cinderella” have been excised.
Scottish Ballet – The Nutcracker – Edinburgh
★★★★✰ A charming, uplifting ballet that truly sets the scene for Christmas. A large part of the heart-warming effect was Darrell’s decision to populate the stage with children…
