At least there are some memorable performances to recall from 2021: at the beginning of the year none of us had any idea when we might sit in a theatre and watch live dance again...
Tag - Akram Khan
★★★✰✰ Akram Khan dedicates his solo Xenos to the anonymous Indian soldiers who lost their lives in the trenches of WW1 fighting a battle that wasn’t theirs.
★★✰✰✰ Akram Khan’s UK premiere of Outwitting the Devil is an exasperating puzzle. Opaque hints of mythological narrative offer challenges to the viewer; but it also contains some beautiful, sculptural moments and gorgeously fluent, liquid moments.
★★★✰✰ All Jose Agudo tells us is that he has drawn on Prosper Merimée’s novella. But the operatic version casts a long shadow in our minds...
★★★✰✰ The latest Royal Ballet premiere is a full evening ballet from Wayne McGregor, using a cracking custom score from Thomas Adès...
★★✰✰✰ Akram Khan and ENB will bounce back, but it's been a long time since I saw such a clunker of a work on a major company.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ the company pulled off an uplifting performance with energy and charm.
★★✰✰✰ Episode Two of Dancing Nation contains works by Humanhood (Júlia Robert and Rudi Cole), Botis Seva for Far From the Norm, Will Tuckett for Birmingham Royal Ballet, Oona Doherty, Boy Blue and Akram Khan with Natalia Osipova (for which ★★★★★).
This three-hour compilation of dance films, interviews and discussions celebrates Akram Khan's burning desire to speak out to a wide audience in the occasion of his company's 20th anniversary.
★★★★✰ Isadora Duncan's spirit has been honoured, even if the impact of her presence remains elusive.
★★★★✰ The annual Icons gala provides the chance to see dancers who don't often appear in London...
★★★★✰ For those of us that have been involved with the company, no matter how small a part, it is clear that the ‘happy family’ that is English National Ballet, reveres and appreciates all who have been part of its 70 year existence.
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★★✰✰ There is a mannered and refined gentility in the movement style; bodies and arms beautifully shaped with the eloquent symmetry of body bends...
★★★✰✰ 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.
★★★★★ Everything about this production is topical, very real and will probably be so for many years to come. Absolutely five stars to the company...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ As with most retellings, Liping’s centres on a young woman destined to dance herself to death. However, the dancemaker has invoked Buddhist principles, including the concept of reincarnation...
★★★✰✰ A very mixed bill... Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa (★★✰✰✰), Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour (★★★★✰) and Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern (★★★★✰)