...though I don’t believe it’s a great work of art, there’s no denying that it’s fun.
Author - Jane Simpson
Update: In June 2014 Jane decided to retire from writing - see more on this page.
The Royal Danish Ballet's Dans2Go, year 3. As previously, the aim is to give newcomers a taste of different types of dance, at low prices...
But it was Rojo who really surprised me, with the most emotionally open performance I've ever seen from her. ...a swansong, indeed: what a way to go!
Gudrun Bojesen, the Royal Danish Ballet's leading classical ballerina, is at an interesting stage of her career...
It's the Royal Ballet's varied and unique repertoire that has kept me loyal to the company through some very thin times as well as the golden seasons, and this programme is a nice example of what a flick through its back - catalogue can produce.
Most of the dancers on stage tonight were not even born when the Royal Ballet' s current Nutcracker production was new, and many of the audience too may imagine that it's been a feature of the Christmas season forever...
What would he himself make of this book, I wonder? He'd be amazed, I should think, by the amount of detail he'd find, and possibly surprised by some of it...
So far as I know, no major company has ever before attempted a time-shifted Bayadère, so Hübbe had the whole of history to pick from. He chose the later years of the British Raj...
It’s an interesting evening, showing both choreographer and company at their best and at somewhat less than that.
...cut down to a single act and shown as part of a properly-balanced double or triple bill it could work beautifully, rather than sending me home feeling hungry.
And in the next act she (Nunez) did just that, giving us one of the best Odiles I remember seeing. She looked as if bamboozling innocently trusting princes was her favourite thing in the world, the most fun she’d ever had...
Several times during the evening I wondered how much anyone who happened never to have seen Lund before would have understood about him from this performance. They would have learnt about his peerless Bournonville technique, and about his ability to get under the skin of the character he's playing...
This is a fascinating story... an important one. Gallea relates the growth, and eventual decline, of the company – known originally as International Ballet Caravan and later as Alexander Roy Ballet Theatre – with an amazing amount of detail...
Ninette de Valois: Adventurous Traditionalist Edited by Richard Cave & Libby Worth Dance Books, Paperback 2012, 289 pages, illus., DVD £20.00 Dance Book publishers page Conference site Jann Parry report on the conference Lynette Halewood report on the conference Earlier Ninette de Valois on Balletco: ‘Invitation to the Ballet’ Exhibition (Nov 2010) Memorial Service to Royal Ballet...
My nickname in BRB used to be Bastard - and something happened with Ballet Hoo! - I don't know whether it's my age, or the kids we worked with, but it made me realise that you can get the best out of dancers and students by coming in on a certain level and talking to them on a certain level - not always shouting. I do shout still, I do get very angry...
The seven works I saw over two nights started with Aureole and ended with Esplanade, and even in these less than perfect circumstances it's impossible to resist the enchantment of these two masterpieces. Aureole especially seems to me the essence of Paul Taylor...
It's a fortunate dance-goer who can discover a critic whose opinions she can trust – doubly fortunate if it's a critic who sees and reports on more performances than any of the rest. It's more than fifty years since I first found that I was turning to John Percival's reviews before anyone else's...
Balanchine famously described a choreographer's job as being like a chef's, and his Ballo della Regina perfectly fulfils the role of amuse-bouche in the Royal Ballet's latest double bill, waking us up and sharpening our appetites for the more serious fare of Bournonville's lovely La Sylphide. It's the fourth ballet the company has tried out in this role and I think it's the most successful.
Every review of La Fille mal Gardée should start with an acknowledgement that, however excellent the performance may have been, the greatest credit belongs to Frederick Ashton, who more than 50 years ago put this happy masterpiece together in a few weeks of cheerful collaboration with his dancers.
It's said that for financial reasons there will be no more performances of Lady of the Camellias here after this run – that would be a little tragedy of its own: these dancers deserve the chance to grow in their roles and their audience deserves the opportunity to see them do it. Let's hope some way will be found to make it happen.