Despite the frequency with which the work is performed, the company manage to retain a warmth and freshness in their presentation of it.
Author - Lynette Halewood
In this programme we got some shiny new toys, maybe quirkier than we imagined, but some definitely to keep and treasure.
...very definitely worth catching for an energetic and engrossing evening of dance.
This is not Cherkaoui’s most successfully realised work but his affection and respect for tango shine through, and the dancers are a joy to watch.
What the programme showed was that, unlike most of other ballet choreographers in Britain today, Bintley's work isn’t primarily about the pas de deux.
"It is performed with great commitment..." says Lynette Halewood of a Jayne Eyre ruthlessly pruned for dance...
...but the production isn’t so interested in motivation, more in grand effects, and those were delivered. It was a glittering, ostentatious performance, though not one to catch the heart.
An apologetic Liepa promised to return for a week next time and bring the new Cleopatra with him, but this was an unsatisfying evening in its current form.
I hope the company return to London, and if they do, I hope they bring some other Forsythe work.
Vardimon has harnessed the energy and liveliness of her diverse cast to produce a briskly-paced work which celebrates the group but still has moments which let the individuality of some of the cast shine through.
It is a mixed experience: too long and overworked in places, a dark vision, unevenly realised, with some striking and chilling moments.
This run is very brief. Let’s hope it returns.
There were wonderful performances by Ekaterina Borchenko and Leonid Sarafanov – dancers you would like to see a lot more of. But three works by the same choreographer was too much of the same dish on the menu.
Don’t expect big emotional highs and lows or deeply defined characters, just a clear narration of a story that everyone knows. So if we judge it on these terms how does it do?
Well, it isn’t ballet and it isn’t revolutionary but it is fun...
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories this last year...
This wasn’t Shiori Kase's debut in the role, but it was remarkably polished and complete for one so young.
It’s a very successful work that manages to combine the oblique with the direct and engaging, and is both funny and sharply observed.
Naharin is at his best when working with groups, particularly mixed groups or groups of men. There isn’t much that is gender specific in the work; women dance much the same steps as men and there is little male / female partnering. What there is looks oddly perfunctory.
The programme included works both old and new but it was not an altogether successful mixture. The dancers looked most at home, and at their most sleek and impressive, in Faster, a work made on them this year by their Artistic Director, David Bintley, evoking the striving of competitors in the Olympics.