★★★★✰ As an almost abstract dance work Until the Lions is outstanding, a spectacular collaboration between dancers, musicians, designers and technicians.
Author - Jann Parry
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★✰✰ David Bintley, who steps down as director of Birmingham Royal Ballet at the end of the 2018/2019 season, describes the current double bill as 'two ballets fuelled by power and politics'.
★★★★✰ The partnership in Mayerling between Morera and Bonelli is a fine example of how experience can illumine the nuances of a dramatic ballet.
★★★★✰ Osipova is lethally orgasmic... Never has MacMilllan's choreography for the death duet seemed so astounding as in her account of it.
★★★★✰ Forsythe is surprising himself and his audience with new discoveries of what bodies and ballets can do.
★★★✰✰ Big Dance Theater company, based in New York, set about turning Samuel Pepys priapic confessions into a dance theatre piece, mashing up past and present....
Jann Parry talks to The Royal Ballet about what's happening on World Ballet Day this year and just what it means for some of those involved... Kristen McNally, James Hay and Assistant director Anthoula Syndica-Drummond.
★★★★★ The Trocks' version of Swan Lake (or Lac, as it used to be known) restores some Soviet era removals. Benno, the hero's best friend and supporter, is back, as are mime sequences, mostly mystifying the participants...
★★✰✰✰ Cherkaoui looks older than his years, so much so that his relationship in Play with Shivalingappa risks being unsettling. As dancers, they are no longer equals, as they must have been in 2008.
★★✰✰✰ Although the first night audience was moved to a standing ovation, Swan Lake can and should be so much more than this stylised ritual...
★★★✰✰ Abreu is a remarkable performer, with a technique developed from forms of Brazilian dance and martial arts that enables him to sink into the floor and rise with resilience.
★★★✰✰ A matinee in two halves: fine before the interval, with dire, dreary choreography in the second half. Thank goodness for the exhilarating Grand Défilé at the close.