★★★★✰ A quote from The Observer's dance critic, Nigel Gosling, in 1964: 'Merce Cunningham and his company have burst on the British scene like a bomb ...heart-warming proof that here is an art with a future...'
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
★★★★✰ What impresses overall is the clarity of the technique; the precision and control it requires. And the way it enlarges the dancers, distilling their strengths, stretching them to the limit.
★★✰✰✰ The main story revolved around bereaved parents who had lost their ten-year old daughter, Sophie, on a daytrip to the Natural History Museum, in London....
★★★★✰ All ten pieces on show were strong, considered commissions, and more than half came from female choreographers – a heartening boost for this male-saturated field.
★★★★✰ Putov brought together remarkable performers whom we long to see again, and left us wanting more...
★✰✰✰✰ There may have been an intelligent premise to this show but, if there was, it remained inaccessible to me....
★★★✰✰ Opus 19 feels at once nostalgic, mysterious and dreamy...
★★★★✰ Grouping this diverse triple bill under the title She Persisted works in so many ways...
★★★✰✰ The annual Ballet Icons gala, now in its 14th year, aims to promote Russian culture while providing a Sunday evening's entertainment for Russians in London and ballet-lovers...
★★★★✰ It's the company's 50th Anniversary season and rather than start it, as you might expect, in Glasgow or Edinburgh, they opened in Scotland's most northerly city, Inverness, with a special premiere and a full-on party for all.
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration...
★★★★✰ Both sisters were competitive athletes before turning to dance and catching a flying chair is just one of many signs of their mutual sporting prowess...
★★★✰✰ Even as I leave the show not really having understood every bit of it, I’m touched by the multi-skilled performers and their unforced honesty.
★★★✰✰ Liam Scarlett has great taste in dancers. For the 29 March world premiere of Die Toteninsel, his fourth commission for San Francisco Ballet, the British choreographer chose the lyrical and athletic principal Joseph Walsh and soloist Lauren Strongin...
★★★✰✰ Somehow, still at the start of the run, the production seems sanitised, nicely 'English' in spite of Nicholas Georgiadis's imposing Italian Renaissance sets and costumes. Different casts yet to come might bring fresh discoveries...
★★★✰✰ Dorrance is a darling of festivals, presenters and audiences, and has recently crossed over into the realm of ballet. But how much crossover and reinvention is too much?
★★★✰✰ Despite these reservations, I am certain that Victoria will repay multiple viewings, since there is much excellent work to consider...
★★★✰✰ Program 5, titled Lyric Voices, welcomed back Trey McIntyre’s Your Flesh Shall Be a Great Poem and Christopher Wheeldon’s Bound To and the new work came from Yuri Possokhov...
★★★✰✰ Sometimes a meeting of diverse dance styles can illuminate both – at other times, it’s not clear what benefit either has gained from the encounter.
Some dance in London – thoughts on Saburo Teshigawara, Diana Vishneva’s CONTEXT Festival & Introdans
Saburo Teshigawara & Rihoko Sato in 'The Idiot' at The Print Room (★★★✰✰), Diana Vishneva's CONTEXT Festival of Russian contemporary choreography at Sadler's Wells (★★★✰✰), Introdansm 'Dutch Masters' bill at ROH (★★★★✰)