London Children’s Ballet – Ballet Shoes – London
★★★✰✰ The great achievement of LCB is to mount professional productions, complete with full orchestra, without charging parents for the privilege.
Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras – Sombras – London
★★★★★ Baras’s improvisations were not outpourings of emotion, but concentrated bursts of pure skill, passionately channelled.
American Ballet Theatre – The Sleeping Beauty – New York
★★★★✰ This production proposes that Sleeping Beauty is not really the story of a love quest – as it’s often depicted – but rather a fable about order and disorder, harmony and disharmony, the balance between good and evil.
Akademi, Sama Art and Dr Swarnamalya Ganesh – Sadir Āttam – Cambridge
★★★★✰ The subtitle for the night was “Sadir: Dancing for Rajahs, Nawabs and the Officers of the Raj”. Sadir dance is a controversial precursor to Bharatanatyam, the classical dance style of South Asia…
Bolshoi Ballet – Spartacus – Brisbane
★★★★✰ the man of the moment on opening night was Igor Tsvirko as Spartacus whose stamina, elevation, turns, partnering, and fouettés were staggering in their execution.
Bolshoi Ballet – Jewels: Emeralds, Rubies, Diamonds – Brisbane
★★★★★ As you would expect Diamonds was the highlight of the three part Jewels.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Hobson’s Choice – London
★★★★✰ Big-hearted, whimsical, suffused with equal parts romance and drollness, Hobson’s Choice is a gem of the BRB repertoire – long may it keep being revived.
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Left Unseen and The Rite of Spring – London
★★✰✰✰ Phoenix Dance Theatre’s The Rite of Spring came with tantalising credentials: the company’s first collaboration with Opera North, and a UK debut for the Haitian choreographer Jeanguy Saintus…
Royal Ballet School – ROH, Young Talent Festival, mixed bill – London
★★★★✰ Royal Ballet School at the ROH Young Talent Festival with a mixed bill of over 10, new and old works…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – [Un]leashed: Lyric Pieces, Sense of Time, Peter and the Wolf – London
★★★✰✰ Overall, invigorating; a demonstration of the company’s healthy enthusiasm for innovation and playing with the form…
Norwegian National Ballet 2 – ROH, Young Talent Festival, Quint Bill – London
★★★✰✰ Norwegian National Ballet 2 at the ROH Young Talent Festival with 5 works – Departures, Valse-Fantaisie, Pas de Sept from A Folk Tale, Some See Stages, Left from Write
Arthur Pita, Natalia Osipova and Jonathan Goddard – The Mother – London
★★★★✰ The Mother takes already dark source material (a Hans Christian Andersen tale) and plunges even deeper into the nightmare scenario it proposes, giving everything a convincing Russian twist along the way.
Paul Taylor Dance Company – Junction, all at once, Promethean Fire – New York
★★★★✰ In her ‘all at once’, Tanowitz seems to have taken Taylor’s ‘Junction’ as her starting point. Like that work, it is a paean to awkwardness…
American Ballet Theatre – Manon – New York
★★★★★ As someone who cries easily, it’s a wonder that Manon remains a favorite ballet of mine… Misty Copeland and Cory Stearns were passionate and persuasive in their respective roles as Manon and Des Grieux.
American Ballet Theatre – Le Corsaire – New York
★★★★✰ Days after the performance, I cannot get James Whiteside’s Ali out of my head. Devon Teuscher’s Medora is charming and warm, pulling off triple fouettées turns and her Italian fouettées with aplomb…
Images Ballet Company – Interplay, Mirrors, On Lineage, Meadowdown – London
★★★✰✰ Images has done an excellent job of commissioning appropriate, innovative choreographers, allowing the company to exceed their expectations…
AVA Dance Company – ORIGINS Festival: No Woman’s Land – London
★★★★✰ Ava Dance Company’s essay on the tribulations of the Inuit people from the northern-most reaches of Canada is appropriately a mix of dance theatre and spoken text…
Junior Ballett Zürich – Young Talent Festival: Echo of Elements, Wounded, Submerge – London
★★★✰✰ The twelve dancers are a mix of nationalities, attractive, lively and energetic, fortunately possessing the stamina required to get through a demanding programme.
Lost Dog – Juliet & Romeo – London
★★★★✰ Juliet and Romeo is a clever work on many different levels.
Company of Elders – Dare I Speak, Natural 2019 – London
★★★★✰ Over the years that I’ve seen them, this extraordinary company of quirky individuals have become more adventurous about what they perform and flexible in how they perform…
