Martha Graham Dance Company – Appalachian Spring, The Auditions – New York
★★★★✰ This season, as part of the 75th anniversary of Appalachian Spring, Martha Graham Dance Company invited Troy Schumacher to create a new piece to be danced alongside the iconic work…
Emanuel Gat Dance – WORKS – London
★★✰✰✰ There are six distinct works that, taped together, form WORKS… It adds up to a beguiling, albeit uneven and often inaccessible, 70-something minutes of dance.
Rambert – Rambert Merce Cunningham Event – London
★★★★✰ As part of the Merce Cunningham Centennial celebrations, Rambert dance company took over all four floors of Sadler’s Wells before the on-stage performance of this year’s Event.
Royal Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – London
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet’s current production of The Sleeping Beauty, dating back to 2006, is a homage to Ninette de Valois and her faith that Marius Petipa’s Imperial Russian ballet should be the flagship of her British company.
Northern Ballet – The Kingdom of Back, Mamela…, The Shape of Sound – London
★★★✰✰ The works offer strong contrasts between the traditional story-telling strength of Northern Ballet and more abstract thematic dance.
Rambert2 – Terms and Conditions, Sin, Sama – London
★★★✰✰ Absolutely first rate dancing with rather mixed choreography…
Marlene Monteiro Freitas – Bacchae: Prelude to a Purge – New York
★★★★★ What this Bacchae resembles most is a kind of carnaval, an ordered mayhem in which up is down, all inhibitions are shed, and madness reigns.
Shobana Jeyasingh Dance – Staging Schiele – London
★★★★✰ Jeyasingh has directed a work in which all the elements integrate seamlessly to provide a satisfying, if fleeting, picture of a life.
Black Grace – Kiona and the Little Bird Suite, As Night Falls, Crying Men, Method – New York
★★★★✰ The dozen dancers brought a fierce energy to the stage, performing four works of astonishing speed and athleticism.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Giselle – London
★★★★✰ …exemplary performances from Momoko Hirata as Giselle and César Morales as Albrecht make for a richly rewarding and moving experience.
Igor and Moreno – BEAT – London
★★★★★ Cool, intelligent, thought-provoking, BEAT excels because of its fantastic creative team and its absolute superstar dancer, Margherita Elliot.
Washington Ballet – NEXTsteps: Reverence, Delusional Beauty, Racecar – Washington
★★★✰✰ The Washington Ballet opened its season with a program of new works created specifically for the company. All three ballets …had a strong visual appeal and plenty of winning ideas…
Sung Im Her – Nutcrusher – London
★★★✰✰ Sung Im Her’s Nutcrusher is a dance work which adds a valuable contribution to the #metoo movement with its gritty aesthetics and undoing of the sexually coded body.
Mariinsky Ballet – La Bayadère – San Francisco
★★★★✰ the Mariinsky’s production was a welcome ravishment of vibrant costumes, shimmering jewels, romantic storytelling and sheer entertainment…
Birmingham Royal Ballet & Ballet Black – A Brief Nostalgia, The Suit, Nine Sinatra Songs – London
Birmingham Royal Ballet ★★★✰✰ & Ballet Black ★★★★★ The Suit rewards multiple viewings and it thoroughly merited the opportunity of the bigger platform…
CCN Ballet de Lorraine and Compagnie Amala Dianor – The Future Bursts In bill – London
★★★★✰ The title of the latest triple bill in the Linbury studio theatre is taken from The Observer’s dance critic’s review of the Merce Cunningham Company’s arrival in Britain in 1964.
ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company – Some Like It Hip Hop – London
★★★★✰ Some Like it Hip Hop is full of quirky humour, great music and dance, enjoying top-notch performances throughout the whole cast of sixteen.
Houston Ballet – The Letter V, Come In, Reflections – New York
★★★★★ Houston Ballet is a prime example of what a 21st century ballet company should look like: diverse, dynamic and accomplished.
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance bill – London
★★★✰✰ Once again, Osipova gave it her all – and Osipova’s all is quite something to behold.
Jonathan Goddard and Lily McLeish – While You Are Here – London
★★✰✰✰ While You Are Here is disappointing despite using a cohort of the best contemporary dancers in the country, working with theatre director Lily McLeish and featuring fine design and lighting.
