This is a show that you can bitch about at length - so much seems wrong. And yet I came out without a long face and was rather thrilled to have been part of a very different audience, many high as kites, screaming at every opportunity...
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
My goodness what a fabulously surreal and wonderful night Made in Heaven proved. Like a vivid dream you recall snatches of a mad roller-coaster ride where the whole is totally unfathomable as any kind of coherent story or message about life, the universe, or anything...
I have a feeling that there may be a musical in here good enough to match the strength of the comedy and set design; if the level of the bar of song and dance can be raised to make a better impact against this over-bearing story.
Soulier has created two thoughtful and captivating dance works from the ingenious simplicity of systematically cataloguing the building blocks of ballet and then having some deconstructive fun by shifting these basic elements around.
La Tania is the only flamenco dancer I have seen that effects me as intensely as does the brilliant Eva Yerbabuena. Ultimately, the most important point, as with any art form, is whether you are moved. And I am, very deeply, by this truly gifted performer.
The dancers of Danza Contemporánea de Cuba are a fabulously talented bunch and it’s a pleasure to see them back at Sadler’s Wells. It would be even more of a pleasure if all the choreography in their programme was the same quality as the dancing.
For the twenty years his company has been around, Wells's choreography has incorporated contact-improvisation, sports paraphernalia (balls of every size from ping pong to basketball, boxing gloves, skateboards), music from classical to rock, often in rapid succession, juggling and gymnastics.
Every May for the past nine years the SFIAF presented an amazing array of live music, theater and dance from all over the world. Most of these performers would never be seen here in San Francisco if it weren’t for festival director Andrew Wood’s fanatic desire to bring as many diverse groups as the limited budget will allow.
The actual Roméo and Juliette sections of Waltz’s work are captivating, but when they stop dancing, it’s harder to remain invested in what’s going on around them. Even in an abstract version of Roméo et Juliette, Romeo and Juliet remain the focal points.
As Manon, Dupont started out as sweet and innocent. Overall, her Manon seemed almost empty, like a vessel for people to put eroticism into or to act upon.
Balanchine famously described a choreographer's job as being like a chef's, and his Ballo della Regina perfectly fulfils the role of amuse-bouche in the Royal Ballet's latest double bill, waking us up and sharpening our appetites for the more serious fare of Bournonville's lovely La Sylphide. It's the fourth ballet the company has tried out in this role and I think it's the most successful.
If you prefer ballet in a more intimate space with easily accessible choreography, energetically performed by dedicated dancers ...you might want to check out Smuin Ballet which has come a long way from its original roots.
Grand Rapids Ballet Company Black Swan White Swan Grand Rapids, Peter Martin Wege Theatre 12 May 2012 www.grballet.com Save Tchaikovsky’s brilliant original score there was little choreographer Mario Radacovsky’s psychological ballet Black Swan White Swan had in common with traditional productions of Swan Lake. No feather-adorned tutus, no clack of pointe shoes hitting the stage floor and no love...
...with Cojocaru the steps are sublimated into the character and the situation. She seems to be experiencing the ballet anew, moment by moment, with the audience. No surprise, then, that her mad scene is hypnotic, and changes from performance to performance...
Rambert... offers a mix of new commissions with rarely-seen work from their archives. Some items had much more impact than others, though not necessarily the ones you might imagine from the programme.
Lubovitch’s signature ...a style whose free-flowing, cascading and highly musical movement qualities appear as effortless to dance as beautiful.
Baryshnikov, now 64, still moves with style and finesse, but the choreography doesn’t offer any opportunities beyond a pseudo-Spanish cliché.
I think it's safe to say that neither of the new works knocked the planet off its axis...
If this were a danced game of “Call My Bluff” then Linehan provides a 45-minute description of the word ‘Aporia’. But, if anyone turned up expecting to see zombies, they would have been very disappointed.
Kochetkova and Domitro, together and separately, dance extraordinarily well. They don’t have the elusive chemistry that she has with Boada, but they still are very much in tune with each other, both musically and artistically, and make a very satisfying partnership.