★★★✰✰ Jann Parry with an alternative view and detailed account of the Akram Khan Giselle for English National Ballet...
Author - Jann Parry
★★★✰✰ Multiverse: McGregor and his dramaturg may know what they want to convey about life and the universe(s) but despite the dancers’ efforts, the result is baffling.
One of the leading interpreters of Kenneth MacMillan’s dramatic ballets Viviana Durante's leaving of the Royal Ballet at the height of her powers was a sad loss to London, if the gain of those who saw her perform elsewhere all around the world. Well now she's back at the Royal Opera House, this time to coach MacMillan's Anastasia, which is where Jann Parry caught up with her...
★★★✰✰ The last act redeems the evening. We learn more about the characters in the final 40 minutes than in the two preceding acts.
Gary Harris has had one of the most varied ballet careers you can get... dancer, teacher, ballet master, artistic director, designer and notator. Now he's working with the Royal Ballet to bring back Kenneth MacMillan’s Anastasia - Jann Parry went for a chat.
★★★★✰ Wink, best seen from above, is a valuable addition to BRB’s repertoire. So is José Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, created in 1949.
"Dancer" has been given a few screenings in London, most recently as part of the BFI London Film Festival, with Polunin and the director, Steven Cantor, in attendance for Q&A sessions...
★★★✰✰ Bintley has treated Shakespeare’s drama as a masque, full of spectacle, music and dancing, with elusive characters that are more allegorical than realistic. It doesn’t work as a narrative ballet because the sub-plots are too complicated...
★★★✰✰ Yorke Dance Project is unusual, among small modern dance companies, in its respect for musicality and for the demands it makes for skilled partnering.
★★★★✰ Early arrivals for the opening night of the Royal Ballet’s autumn season could watch Peregrine the pony being escorted to the stage door in readiness for his role in La Fille mal gardée...
★★★★✰ Revelations is always a joy, however often one sees it. Ailey’s choreography, influenced by his mentor, Lester Horton, and Martha Graham, is a reminder of how potent that modern dance technique could be.
★★★✰✰ I was eager to see American Ballet Theatre’s Sleeping Beauty, mounted by Alexei Ratmansky last year, because of the enthusiastic reviews it has received in the United States. The Paris premiere, however, met with muted acclaim...
His is an insider’s account, complete with waspish comments and cameos of the famous people he encountered...
★★★★✰ The great pleasure of Alexei Ratmansky’s version of Vasily Vainonen’s 1932 ballet is the cornucopia of steps to which both choreographers had access: danse d’école, folk and character dances, as well as expressive acting.
★★★★✰ The performers need the sharpest of reactions to deal with the unexpected, negotiating routes through bemused and bedazzled spectators.
★★★✰✰ Maillot’s ballet... belongs to Krysanova and Lantratov, who succeed in conveying that Kate and Petruchio are wildly, equally in love, however crassly they treat each other...
★★★✰✰ According to the programme notes for Yuri Grigorovich’s 2001 account of Swan Lake, his Prince Siegfried is a ‘ballet Lohengrin’ – a Knight of the White Swan. The production is all about him.
★★★★✰ The Bolshoi’s Don Quixote continues to delight for the exuberance and skill of its range of performers, with the corps de ballet and demi-soloists taking pride of place.
★★★✰✰ ...the production lurches between down-to-earth Aussie niceness and the designer’s European conceits...
★★★★✰ The pleasure, above all, in watching this company is their fearless super-charge of energy and their commitment as the inheritors of Balanchine’s ballets.