Well, the set is spectacular, by the ever-resourceful Steven Scott. Perhaps Igor Zelensky and Sergei Polunin had simply seen stills of Peter Schaufuss’s Midnight Express when they agreed to appear in the ballet.
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
The revitalizing impact of Balanchine’s choreography on Tchaikovsky’s music was particularly evident in the all-Tchaikovsky, all-Balanchine program presented by New York City Ballet at the Kennedy Center Opera House during the last week of March.
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.
His choreography is busy, occasionally predictable, but more often inventive, strong on musicality and both remarkably fluid and emotionally charged; stretching the dancers both literally and in terms of their artistic diversity.
First thing to say is that it's a peach of a production, coherent, dramatically satisfying... It still feels fresh and vibrant... The three leads did well... Elsewhere it was a mix of good and ragged steps...
When the Mikhailovsky Ballet first brought this production to London in 2010, Laurencia seemed a creakily old-fashioned Soviet drambalet. Now, with Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev as the leads, it sparkles with fun, melodrama and commitment...
When he begins to move, you are not just impressed by what he’s doing – which is impressive enough – but also touched by the quiet joy and purity of expression that emanates from his body and eyes.
I first saw Onegin with Marcia Haydée and Richard Cragun when the Stuttgart Ballett made its New York debut in 1969. So when San Francisco Ballet premiered it in the 2011-12 season I was happy to meet an old acquaintance again.
...the Mikhailovsky put on a wonderful display of classical excellence that we just don't routinely see in the UK.
For the past ten years, since I first saw Shen Wei's Folding, I have been an admirer of this artist’s work.
It takes a certain amount of nerve to build a dance season around some of the great masterpieces of the chamber music repertoire. It’s not simply a matter of status in the musical canon; these pieces are strong, they produce emotions, they command attention for themselves. But Bill T Jones is not a timid artist...
Osipova is tireless, impelled by a supernatural force until she fades away in a spine-tingling ending, a spirit no longer. Osipova’s Giselle has given every last atom of herself to Albrecht and to us, her witnesses.
The opening night Aurora and Désiré were danced by Misa Kuranaga and Jeffrey Cirio, a superbly matched couple who have become a standard in the company.
The most successful piece from Göteborg’s troupe was OreloB (Bolero spelled backwards), created by Finnish choreographer Kenneth Kvarnström as part of the program titled 3xBoléro – a dance-triptych which interprets Ravel’s Bolero from three different perspectives.
Sadler’s Wells has found the dance equivalent of the Yukon in making this young Spaniard one of its International New Wave Artists.
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?
van Dijk has been in Australia for less than a year, and already the new Chunky Move has presented two full-length works. The transition of van Dijk’s Chunky Move into an Australian company has begun as well.
While I wasn't wowed by the closer, as I left I couldn't stop talking about the Bhuller and Gable and wishing to see major companies put them both on in full. That and the usual thought: Another year, another fine night from Ballet Central - well done all.
Three radically different worlds are conjured up by strongly contrasting styles of dancing, music, set and design...
Though this year it was Nijinsky’s turn to be reclaimed as a Russian icon, the contents of the gala had little to do with him. Very probably the choice of items – mainly pas de deux - depended on which dancers were available to perform whatever was in their repertoire.