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
Igor and Moreno – Idiot-Syncrasy – London
★★★✰✰ The clue is in the title. Although there is a small section of partnered dance towards the end, this is about conjoined peculiarity…
Vaibhavi and Shruti Merchant’s Taj Express – London
The Merchants of Bollywood are back, this time with “Taj Express”. Graham Watts on thin plots and a glittery parade of happiness. ★★★✰✰
English National Ballet – Lest We Forget bill – London
★★★★★ “I cannot recall being so moved at a dance performance for a very long time, if ever.”
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance – London
★★★✰✰ No trade description problems, here. This was exactly what it said on the tin: Natalia Osipova performing pure dance, enhanced only by recorded music and lighting designs varying from the merest of subtle tints to an explosion of floodlights…
Carmen La Cubana – London
★★★★✰ Far from being just one more interpretation of the ubiquitous Carmen, this Cuban version is a unique retelling of the popular narrative, superbly performed.
Gilles Brinas’ Che Malambo – London
★★★✰✰ Malambo is a dance form rooted in the traditions of the gaucho (South American cowboys), evolving from long nights by the campfire on the cattle trails of Las Pampas…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Polarity & Proximity: Kin., Embrace, In The Upper Room – London
★★★✰✰ Williamson’s commission – the first of an ambitious Ballet Now programme for new works – was themed on issues of gender and alienation, with Brandon Lawrence being a man struggling for identity…
Kevin and Karen Clifton – Kevin and Karen Dance – London
★★★★✰ This show defied the norm: a counter-intuitive observation about a spin-off from the archetypal routine of a Saturday evening institution that millions of us watch with our feet up.
Antonia Grove / Probe – Now You See It – London
★★★★✰ This hour-long solo was a tour de force for a charismatic performer, bearing her soul in a courageous, largely autobiographical account of an upbringing in which there were five simultaneous conversations going on at every mealtime.
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.
