Siobhan Murphy is a freelance writer, reviewer and editor, based in London. Between 2005 and 2014 she was London Metro's arts editor. She also contributes to LondonDance and tweets sporadically at @blacktigerlily.
Under are the articles written for DanceTabs.
Lost Dog – Juliet & Romeo – London
★★★★✰ What if the star cross’d lovers hadn’t died, but had run away, got married, had a child, reached middle age and hit a relationship crisis?
Russell Maliphant and Vangelis – The Thread – London
★★★✰✰ Sometimes a meeting of diverse dance styles can illuminate both – at other times, it’s not clear what benefit either has gained from the encounter.
BalletBoyz – Them/Us – London
★★★★✰ There’s lots to savour in this burst of creative expression from the present crop of Boyz.
Ultima Vez – Mockumentary of a Contemporary Saviour – London
★★✰✰✰ Ultima Vez’s latest show, a devised piece of dance-theatre that tries to explore the nature of faith and religion, …ends up about as awkward and unwieldy as its title.
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch – Bon Voyage, Bob… – London
★★✰✰✰ It’s three hours long, not including the interval. But a tanztheater classic this is not…
Uchenna Dance – Hansel & Gretel – London
★★★✰✰ Vicki Igbokwe’s bold dance retelling of the classic fairytale Hansel and Gretel has a sense of playfulness at its heart, and something of a political message for adults to chew on too.
Colin Dunne – Concert – London
★★★★✰ Since leaving the Riverdance juggernaut, Dunne has taken a stripped-back approach to Irish dancing, exposing its deeply soulful side.
Dimitris Papaioannou – The Great Tamer – London
★★★★✰ What a deeply strange – and strangely affecting – piece of work The Great Tamer is. You’d struggle to call it dance; Dimitris Papaioannou is intensely interested in bodies and how to move them, but this manifested itself in something quite different from sequences of steps.
Via Katlehong Dance and Gregory Maqoma – Via Kanana – London
★★★★✰ This show was a blast of South African pantsula, a township dance movement that has drawn influences from everything from tribal dances to hip hop…
Wen Hui – Red – London
★★★✰✰ It reminds you powerfully that the Chinese Cultural Revolution has a living legacy…
Carlos Acosta and Acosta Danza – Carlos Acosta: A Celebration bill – London
★★★✰✰ There was a lot here to enjoy. This may have been a celebration of three decades in dance, but there was no nostalgia here…
Avant Garde Dance – Fagin’s Twist – London
★★★★✰ Tony Adigun’s smart street-dance reimagining of Dickens’s Oliver Twist switches the focus of the tale…
Carlos Acosta – Dancer, Directer, Choreographer: ‘I am a man on a mission – I always have been’
“That’s what it’s always been about for me – the necessity to connect with an audience and express myself.”
Dance@TheGrange – Curated by Wayne McGregor & Edward Watson – Grange Festival, Hampshire
★★★★✰ McGregor’s company dancers (in Bach Forms) brought a surging energy, buoying up jewel-like moments from the Royal Ballet stars…
Boy Blue – A Night with Boy Blue – London
★★★✰✰ The annual celebration of all things Boy Blue fielded 138 dancers this year – Kenrick Sandy and Michael Asante’s company is one that can wow you through sheer force of numbers alone.
Breakin’ Convention 2018 – London
★★★★✰ Jonzi D’s hip-hop dance festival reached its 15th birthday this year and its quinceañero was – eventually – a raucously joyful coming-of-age. Featuring performances by BirdGang, Zeljko Bozic & Miljan Nojic, Elsabet Yonas, UMA, Room 2 Manoeuvre, Compagnie Amala Dianor, The Locksmiths, The Ruggeds, Mufasa & Ayanna Witter-Johnson, Boy Blue Entertainment.
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Windrush: Movement of the People, Calyx, Shadow – London
★★★★✰ Watson, a child of the Windrush generation, showed movingly here just what a “hostile environment” existed for these migrants from the moment they arrived.
Cecilia Bengolea & François Chaignaud – DFS – London
★★✰✰✰ Jamaican dancehall and traditional Georgian vocal polyphony are not two things you expect to see in the same sentence, let alone on the same stage.
Uchenna Dance – The Head Wrap Diaries – London
★★★★✰ Hair is a fraught subject for most women. For black women, the struggle with their locks (braids, weaves, relaxed or natural) can be titanic – getting your hair done can be a day-long ordeal…
Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Antony Gormley, Szymon Brzoska with monks from the Shaolin Temple – Sutra – London
★★★★★ It still has the power to surprise and delight – and let the imagination fly.
