★★★★✰ Directed by Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, the return to the Barbican of Blak Whyte Gray, is again a triumph.
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
★★★✰✰ No trade description problems, here. This was exactly what it said on the tin: Natalia Osipova performing pure dance, enhanced only by recorded music and lighting designs varying from the merest of subtle tints to an explosion of floodlights...
★★★✰✰ Rarely seen in London apart from performances at Breakin’ Convention, French choreographer Pierre Rigal brings something different to the hip-hop dance theatre scene with Scandale.
★★★✰✰ What will Co.Lab become? I look forward to finding out. Meanwhile, it’s simply encouraging to see these dancers and emerging choreographers create something of their own.
★★✰✰✰ Cherkaoui looks older than his years, so much so that his relationship in Play with Shivalingappa risks being unsettling. As dancers, they are no longer equals, as they must have been in 2008.
★★★★✰ Velvet Petal is Darkin’s latest work for the company, created in 2017 after she read Just Kids, Patti Smith’s memoir about her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1970s.
★★★✰✰ What I loved about it was that none of the acts fitted into neat categories but spilled out through porous art boundaries.
★★✰✰✰ Although the first night audience was moved to a standing ovation, Swan Lake can and should be so much more than this stylised ritual...
★★✰✰✰ After viewing Ashton on a bill with works by Ricardo Graziano and Christopher Wheeldon, I’m not worried about Ashton’s relevance nor his resonance with a future audience. ...Both the Graziano and Wheeldon posed some problems from what some might consider a “female” perspective.
★★★★✰ The evening definitely delivered a broad swath of dance performance – a very strong debut and a great addition to the SF dance festival circuit.
★★★✰✰ How striking Morris’ dancers are, how diversified in form and unique in expression and cohesive as a troupe — ever present and responsive to each other.
★★★✰✰ Half-narrative and semi-abstract, ISADORA hop-skips through the dancer’s life; it’s described in the program notes as a “freely interpreted biography,” and it cherry-picks around unsavory elements...
★★★★✰ Far from being just one more interpretation of the ubiquitous Carmen, this Cuban version is a unique retelling of the popular narrative, superbly performed.
★★✰✰✰ ...watching La Bayadère can feel like observing an artifact stuck in another era, and indicates the need for a conversation about what a contemporary, forward-thinking repertoire should look like.
East London Dance, Hofesh Shechter Company and LIFT Festival East Wall: Storm the Tower ★★★★✰ London, Tower of London eastwall.org www.hofesh.co.uk www.liftfestival.com www.eastlondondance.org Sitting outside on a balmy summer evening in London, watching the performances of East Wall unfold against the backdrop of the imposing Tower of London is a rare treat. Life gets even better when the two...
★★★✰✰ Abreu is a remarkable performer, with a technique developed from forms of Brazilian dance and martial arts that enables him to sink into the floor and rise with resilience.
ODC/Dance – Summer Sampler 1: Head in the Sand, Something About a Nightingale, Giant – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ A solid program overall, there were moments that satiated my craving for lightness and moments that challenged it.
★★★✰✰ Malambo is a dance form rooted in the traditions of the gaucho (South American cowboys), evolving from long nights by the campfire on the cattle trails of Las Pampas...
★★★✰✰ A matinee in two halves: fine before the interval, with dire, dreary choreography in the second half. Thank goodness for the exhilarating Grand Défilé at the close.
★★★✰✰ This summer's showcase of English National Ballet School's students was the first under its new director, Carlos Valcarcel... The Wimbledon programme consisted of two creations by him, two by students, and excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty as a conclusion.