Royal Ballet – Coppélia – London
★★★★✰ The dancing is so enjoyable, the comedy so appealing, that any flaws in the story telling are easily overlooked.
Mavin Khoo & Temple of Fine Arts – unnamed dance inspired by the Ramayana – London
★★★✰✰ Mavin Khoo doesn’t appear on stage here: the work has been made on dancers from the Temple of Fine Arts Inner Space Dance, based in Malaysia.
Paul Taylor American Modern Dance – Gala including new Kyle Abraham – New York
★★★★✰ As a special one-off, Michael Trusnovec, now a guest artist, danced the solo from George Balanchine’s spiky and ascetic Episodes which he made for Paul Taylor in 1959.
Ballet du Rhin – Les Beaux Dormants – London
Le Ballet de L’Opéra national du Rhin – Ballet du Rhin Les Beaux dormants (The Sleeping Beauties) ★★★✰✰ London, Linbury Theatre, Royal Opera House, 21 November 2019 Gallery of pictures by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Acosta Danza – Evolution: Rooster, Faun, Satori & Paysage, Soudain, la nuit – London
★★★★✰ It’s thrilling to see the building confidence of Carlos Acosta’s Cuban-based dance company. There’s a sense of cohesion, shared purpose and a unique identity drawn from a vibrant range of influences.
Bolshoi Ballet – Giselle (Ratmansky premiere) – Moscow
★★★★✰ This is a Giselle that is both familiar and new. Watching it on opening night was like seeing a faded painting regain its colors.
Mark Morris Dance Group – Pepperland – Washington
★★★✰✰ Much of the exuberance and vibrancy in Pepperland is supplied by Morris’s ingenious and utterly entertaining choreography…
Just Us Dance Theatre / Joseph Toonga – Born To Manifest – London
★★★★✰ This is a thoughtful and nuanced depiction of how complex and fraught identity can be in Britain today, put across with meaty, muscular force by two charismatic performers.
Tom Dale Company – Step Sonic, Resonance of Air, Escape, Surge – London
Tom Dale Company Step Sonic, Resonance of Air, Escape, Surge ★★★✰✰ London, The Place 14 November 2019 tomdale.org.uk www.theplace.org.uk This two-part programme of work in progress further enhances Tom Dale’s reputation as a…
ACE Dance and Music – Skin Reimagined: Blind Trip, Letlalo – London
★★✰✰✰ Blind Trip was longer than it deserved to be and mixed too many ideas to be compact and coherent, while Letlalo left me wanting more of the performance on stage but less of the filming going on beside me.
Company Točnadanza – “Peggy Untitled”: Dedicated to Peggy Guggenheim – Venice
★★★✰✰ “Peggy Untitled” is a poetic, impressionistic tribute to the enigmatic Peggy Guggenheim and five works in the Guggenheim collection.
Dorrance Dance – Myelination, Jungle Blues, Three to One – London
★★★★✰ Dorrance Dance boast crisp technique and a sharp-witted approach that catapults tap way beyond its show-biz associations.
Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome – Sadler’s Wells Wild Card series: Inchoate Buzz – London
★★★✰✰ Fernanda Munoz-Newsome’s unconventional set up in the Lilian Baylis transformed the studio into part nightclub-chill-out lounge, part sensual art installation and featured a line-up of intriguing guest artists.
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.
