★★★✰✰ This year's Russian Ballet gala was ostensibly in honour of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa's birth. Any choreography attributed to him was mostly a long way 'after Petipa', but it's always fun to see excellent Russian dancers deliver pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
★★✰✰✰ With its theme of masculinity, Panta Rei Dance Theatre’s Lullaby seems a timely choice for the Norwegian company’s Stateside debut...
★★★★✰ Born a Shadow: Compañía Rafaela Carrasco’s inspired show had a powerful narrative drive.
★★★✰✰ Ímpetus promised a mix of modern ballet with traditional flamenco, a show shaped by new interpretations of classic Spanish music...
★★★★★ The Troth is a gripping experience of a shared heritage. It's convincingly told as a moving story of love and sacrifice, set in an all-too-familiar context of First World War horror seen through unfamiliar eyes...
★★★★✰ The choreography for Bootstrap Tales abides in a place where possibility, gumption and empowerment meet. The atmosphere of moving forward is palpable.
★★★★✰ Rarely have I witnessed a prolonged standing ovation midway through a show but it happened here to acknowledge the legendary gypsy bailaora from Barcelona, known as La Chana.
★★★★✰ In each section of Painter and Flamenco the dancers personify not only the spirit and energy of de Torres’ portraits but also the poetry of his art.
★★★✰✰ A strikingly beautiful ballerina, with a lissome body and expressive features, EunWon Lee is an ideal Juliet...
★★★✰✰ Ben Duke's speciality, in the works he devises for Lost Dog, the company he founded in 2004 with Raquel Meseguer, is conflating high art with low life – epic literature with everyday banalities.
★★★✰✰ Yo Carmen was originally billed as a radical reimagining of Bizet’s opera and that’s not exactly the case. Don’t go along to this thinking that you will see any representation of the story with gypsies and bullfighters, or any male characters dancing.
★★★★★ This was flamenco puro in its most fabulous form, dominated – as it should be – by the voice, led by three of the most celebrated of today’s star flamenco singers. It doesn’t get much better.
★★★✰✰ This mixed triple bill is made up of work created on the company by artists in the SFB family: On a Theme of Paganini by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson, Ibsen’s House by Principal Character dancer Val Caniparoli and Ghost in the Machine by Myles Thatcher, part of the corps de ballet since 2010.
★★★✰✰ The return of Christopher Wheeldon's The Winter's Tale in its third revival since 2014 brings newcomers to its many meaty roles. It also introduces new audience members to one of Shakespeare's late plays, with its convoluted plot.
★★★✰✰ Not all, but many pas de deuxs have a romantic subtext, whether intentional or not. But in Rodeo Peck has crafted a pas de deux celebrating introductions and the process of getting to know another person.
★★★★✰ It's impossible to make coherent sense of a Bausch piece, whatever the source of her inspiration.
★★★★✰ Except for one section, we were led from place to place to experience the piece’s lush tapestry of movement and sound.
★★★✰✰ Whitley has merged the different disciplines so successfully that there's relatively little distinction between dancers and jugglers.
★★★✰✰ All was danced with the quiet focus, lucidity, and unfussy delivery that characterize the company. No attention-grabbing fireworks...
★★★✰✰ Like Walker’s first work for the company "Dance Odyssey" shows a lot of promise. It has warmth and humor, a good grasp of stage geometry and a sensitive musicality.