Transitions Dance Company is a finishing school that provides a special opportunity to contextualise their dance studies and training and this year’s ensemble demonstrated a strong range of capabilities across a wide spectrum of skill sets.
Reviews
Reviews of Dance and Ballet Performances
Few nineteenth-century story ballets are as satisfying as Giselle, with its simple and poetic plot, compact structure and starkly contrasting moods. This week I watched four Giselles, with four distinctly different casts...
Since becoming artistic director at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in 2011, Robert Battle has been steadily mixing up the company’s repertory, adding works by choreographers beyond its usual range: Paul Taylor, Ohad Naharin, and Wayne McGregor, to name just three.
To fully enjoy Ashton, one has to be willing to acquiesce to one’s own softer impulses, a sense of wonder and perhaps a little nostalgia, and to surrender the loveliness of small things.
At the outset I have to say I thought this year was one of the better years and we should all feel encouraged at the creativity on show.
...in the autumn of their dancing careers Acosta and Rojo put on a stunning display that brought many in the audience to their feet come the end.
It’s a short programme but packed with memorable images, and brilliantly executed.
Ballet Ireland have danced several times in London but never at Sadler's Wells and never with the Irish ambassador as a warm-up, I fancy.
Eclectic, fascinating choreography is danced with precision and passion by this fine-tuned company...
I was finding it to be a consolation that the work would only last for 45 minutes and a fairly lacklustre reception from a far-from-full auditorium suggests that I wasn’t alone in welcoming the end.
JLD is a relatively young troupe, but it consists of nine experienced and established dancers, some of them well-known and admired in Washington. Take for example, Clifton Brown...
In the Royal Ballet's last programme for this season two old favourites frame the first performances of Alastair Marriott's latest work, Connectome. It's a well-balanced evening and gives the new piece every chance to shine.
Finding myself in Rome for a few weeks, I decided to test the local waters and was happy to discover that the Rome Opera Ballet was performing Tchaikovsky’s 'Sleeping Beauty', with several casts. I chose a cast almost at random...
It's always nice to be in at the start of a new company especially one associated with a class troupe like Dutch National Ballet (DNB). Their 13-strong Junior Company, newly minted this season, is for dancers aged 18-20...
Including a low-key pilot at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe of 2012, the 'Flash Mob' brand is now into its third iteration, and I must immediately confess to liking this show less than either of its predecessors.
...while I may have successfully held my own for the first two rounds, I’d been soundly beaten by the end.
Of all the school shows I most appreciate the one by Central School of Ballet. Their show, under the name Ballet Central, invariably has the widest range of dance, from ballet to contemporary to musical theatre and more. And importantly they tour it...
This was a tremendous show with which to close the Birmingham International Dance Festival of 2014.
To close its 50th anniversary season Boston Ballet mounted a splendid production of Balanchine’s 1967 masterpiece Jewels.
David Hallberg is a rarity in today’s classical ballet. Tall, lean and strikingly handsome, with pure classical line and impeccable dancing prowess, he is a genuine danseur noble.