San Francisco Ballet – The Infinite Ocean, Snowblind, Björk Ballet – London
★★★★✰ Ballet companies across the globe are in a new age of commissioning …but none can match the pioneering zeal of this, the oldest American ballet company.
Royal Ballet Flanders – Fall, Chronicle, Boléro – Antwerp
★★★★✰ For a very short while, Wim Vanlessen will enjoy the claim that he has performed for the Royal Ballet Flanders for more than half its existence. The company celebrates its fiftieth anniversary, later this year and Vanlessen joined in 1994. This performance was both a celebration of exceptional long service and a farewell…
Paris Opera Ballet – Thierrée / Shechter / Pérez / Pite – Paris
★★★★✰ Crystal Pite’s work stands out as the crowd-pleaser. With huge cheers and applause, we rise to our feet for the dancers.
Ekaterina Maximova Arabesque Ballet Competition Gala in Honour of Marius Petipa and Lev Tolstoy – Perm
The occasion was the 15th anniversary of the Ekaterina Maximova Arabesque Ballet Competition named, since 2012, after the late and much-loved Bolshoi ballerina, and organised by her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev…
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Windrush: Movement of the People, Calyx, Shadow – London
★★★★✰ Watson, a child of the Windrush generation, showed movingly here just what a “hostile environment” existed for these migrants from the moment they arrived.
Royal Ballet / Charlotte Edmonds – Piggy in the Middle, Sink or Swim – London
★★★✰✰ Piggy in the Middle is, in part, Edmonds’ tribute to Kenneth MacMillan, the 25th anniversary of whose death has been marked during the Royal Ballet’s 2017/2018 season.
Dutch National Ballet – Dutch Doubles: Impermanence, Two and Only, Déjà vu, Last Resistance – Amsterdam
★★★★✰ Dutch National Ballet’s Dutch Doubles quad bill features 3 new works by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Ernst Meisner and Wubkje Kuindersma plus a classic piece, new to the company, from the legend that is Hans van Manen.
Russian Ballet Icons Gala 2018 – London
★★★✰✰ 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.
5 Questions to Mark Bruce about his latest dance-theatre work – Macbeth
As his new Macbeth starts its UK tour with Jonathan Goddard in the lead, we have a very quick chat with award winning choreographer Mark Bruce…
Saburo Teshigawara / KARAS – Sleeping Water – New York
★★✰✰✰ There are dances that one figures out in the first five minutes. Hope as one might that the piece will evolve or turn a corner, it soldiers on in the same vein, section after section, until the end.
Ballet Central – 2017 Tour – London
★★★✰✰ At the end of the evening was what you might call the blockbuster piece of the tour – 30 minutes of Matthew Bourne in the form of Act II of his “Highland Fling”. Bourne’s take on “La Sylphide” is a wonderful piece of work, full of wit, style and pathos…
New York City Ballet – Spring Gala with Odessa, Ratmansky premiere – New York
★★★✰✰ With only four works, no intermissions and a run time of less than two hours, New York City Ballet’s Spring Gala was short and to the point.
New York City Ballet – HERE/NOW Festival, Wheeldon Quad bill – New York
★★★✰✰ It’s a shame that the company didn’t choose to revive some Wheeldon rarities from its back catalogue…
Complexions Contemporary Ballet – Gutter Glitter, So Not A…, Star Dust – New York
★★✰✰✰ Slated as a “rock opera style production” created in the late David Bowie’s honour, Star Dust is a lengthy, razzle dazzle suite of dances set to Bowie’s most popular tunes.
Ave Maya Gala in Memory of Maya Plisetskaya – London
★★★✰✰ Every gala needs a revelation, and this one was provided by Sergio Bernal, a Spanish dancer who dominated the stage in an imperious farruca solo from Antonio’s flamenco version of The Three Cornered Hat…
New York City Ballet – Works By Balanchine, Martins, Peck and Wheeldon – Washington
★★★✰✰ The first of two mixed programs that New York City Ballet presented at the Kennedy Center Opera House in March offered a wide variety of works…
Royal Ballet – Wheeldon bill: Strapless, After the Rain, Within the Golden Hour – London
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon’s talents are on display, as well as the Royal Ballet’s dancers. A pity, then, that Strapless has been exposed without previews to sort out its weaknesses.
Dance Heginbotham – Angel’s Share, Diamond, Easy Win – New York
Heginbotham has a knack for choosing just the right music for his dances, none of it hackneyed or used solely for its atmospheric qualities: no Arvo Pärt, no Philip Glass…
Royal Ballet – Raven Girl, Connectome – London
In this revival of Wayne McGregor’s Raven Girl, Watson becomes something more than a postman…
Chamber Dance Project – Joyce Theater Ballet Festival bill – New York
Chamber Dance Project is essentially what it says on the tin: a small dance troupe which performs to live chamber music.
