Jasper Conran is producing new designs for Christopher Wheeldon’s "Within the Golden Hour", to be premiered by the Royal Ballet on the 8 May 2019. Jann Parry talks to Conran about the designs and his earlier and extensive work for David Bintley at Birmingham Royal Ballet…
Author - Jann Parry
★★★★✰ A quote from The Observer's dance critic, Nigel Gosling, in 1964: 'Merce Cunningham and his company have burst on the British scene like a bomb ...heart-warming proof that here is an art with a future...'
★★★★✰ Putov brought together remarkable performers whom we long to see again, and left us wanting more...
★★★✰✰ The annual Ballet Icons gala, now in its 14th year, aims to promote Russian culture while providing a Sunday evening's entertainment for Russians in London and ballet-lovers...
Ivan Putrov's latest project, Against the Stream, gets its premiere on Sunday 7 April 2019 at the London Coliseum. Jann Parry finds out all about it...
★★★✰✰ Somehow, still at the start of the run, the production seems sanitised, nicely 'English' in spite of Nicholas Georgiadis's imposing Italian Renaissance sets and costumes. Different casts yet to come might bring fresh discoveries...
This programme celebrated Annette Page's career with the Royal Ballet and supported the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She died at the age of 84 of MND, a cruel disease for a former dancer and an articulate, witty woman...
★★✰✰✰ Could Liam Scarlett's monstrous Frankenstein be fixed with more, better surgery? Evidently not, in this revival, three years after its creation.
★★★★✰ Alston's choreography is formal in that it has structure, style and steps, instead of resorting to running in circles. Its partnering etiquette is courteous rather than abusive.
★★★★★ With Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov... Theirs was a performance that caught up everyone in the sheer pleasure and excitement of spectacular dancing.
★★★★✰ - Royal Ballet School in Liam Scarlett's new Cunning Little Vixen. ★★✰✰✰ - Royal Ballet's Yasmine Naghdi debut in Two Pigeons.
★★★★✰ As an almost abstract dance work Until the Lions is outstanding, a spectacular collaboration between dancers, musicians, designers and technicians.
★★★★✰ Now that we are all one more Nutcracker nearer death, as weary critic Richard Buckle used to bemoan, the Royal Ballet has given us a wintry bonne bouche of ballets to savour.
To celebrate 10 year of live relays the Royal Opera House is hosting a Cinema Festival of past works in the newly rebuilt Linbury Studio Theatre. Jann Parry was there for the screening of Ashton's Sylvia (recorded in 2005) and which included Darcey Bussell reminiscing about dancing the lead role...
★★★★✰ Wright's ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
★★✰✰✰ According to a programme note by the Wang Ramirez duo, they have turned Sawhney's album into 'a fully choreographed show. What will be shown on stage is the result of our interpretation of what has been discussed, researched, felt and exchanged during our meetings.'
★★★✰✰ If The Unknown Soldier is dispiritingly low-key, Wayne McGregor's Infra remains assertively bold...
★★★✰✰ Mark Morris's Layla and Majnun is a music concert with dancing, lamenting a love that cannot be. It's an age-old story, spread across continents and centuries.
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time - she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet's production of La Bayadere - her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago...
★★★★✰ In the past, the Royal Ballet's version, last performed five years ago, has sometimes seemed insubstantial. Not so this time, with a luxury cast in full dramatic mode: Vadim Muntagirov, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova and Gary Avis...