Royal Ballet School – Summer Show, ROH Main Stage – London
★★★★✰ The choice of works emphasised ensembles more than individuals. It was interesting to see large numbers of young men dancing together, as well as a more usual female corps de ballet.
Royal Ballet School – Holland Park bill (mainly Upper School) – London
★★★★✰ The show overall gave us a good slice of what ballet is in 2019, and just how adaptable the students need to be these days – exciting times for them and exciting for us in the audience as well.
Royal Ballet School – ROH, Young Talent Festival, mixed bill – London
★★★★✰ Royal Ballet School at the ROH Young Talent Festival with a mixed bill of over 10, new and old works…
Images Ballet Company – Interplay, Mirrors, On Lineage, Meadowdown – London
★★★✰✰ Images has done an excellent job of commissioning appropriate, innovative choreographers, allowing the company to exceed their expectations…
Richard Alston Dance Company – Mid Century Modern, Carnaval, Cut and Run – London
★★★★★ It must be tempting to get carried away by sentiment when it comes to celebrating both a 70th birthday and fifty years as a choreographer in a programme that also marks the departure of a special muse.
Scottish Ballet – The Nutcracker – Edinburgh
★★★★✰ A charming, uplifting ballet that truly sets the scene for Christmas. A large part of the heart-warming effect was Darrell’s decision to populate the stage with children…
Interview – Mara Galeazzi on Woolf Works, her wider career and dancing on…
She found that she came back to perform with the company she left five years ago with a different approach. ‘I know more about why I love to perform…’
San Francisco Ballet – Fearful Symmetries (premiere), Rubies, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ “But despite his high concept, Scarlett seemed to lose the thread halfway through, resorting to lascivious theatrics to complete the work…”
Rambert – Subterrain, The Strange Charm of Mother Nature, Terra Incognita – London
By the end, I felt our journey of discovery had involved driving down one of those long, straight, interminable cross-American highways, with nothing but the same prairieland in view.
Book – Never Far from Dancing, Ballet artists in new roles by Barbara Newman
While some of the views expressed may not chime with your own, the fascination of this book is to understand how contentious maintaining and developing ballet as vibrant theatre often is.
Scottish Ballet – Hansel and Gretel (premiere) – Glasgow
Christopher Hampson’s production, set to Engelbert Humperdinck’s 1893 opera score, dances round traditional perceptions of good and evil, raising sinister notions about the invisibility of danger lurking in the real world.
Rambert – The Castaways, Subterrain, The Comedy of Change – London
There are many stand-out moments in Marshall’s work, in its humour, visual impact and through the regular break-away from the spoken text in synchronised group dancing to catchy tunes of a middle-eastern, gypsy or Yiddish style…
Ashley Page – Choreographer
Music is always my anchor. I can’t work without a very solid musical base. The lion’s share of the work I’ve made over the years has been music-led and the primary instigator in Subterrain is the Turnage music.
Aldeburgh Festival – Britten Dances bill by Royal Ballet & RB Flanders
The performance was sold out and very warmly applauded and I hope the Festival authorities will take notice, and schedule a similar programme in future years.
San Francisco Ballet – Guide to Strange Places, Beaux, Rite of Spring – San Francisco
Possokhov’s Rite of Spring is a mixture of mostly good choices with a few that seem rather odd to me.
San Francisco Ballet – Programme B: Tomasson, Wheeldon, Page – London
San Francisco’s second programme was better balanced than the first, with contrasting works created for the company within the past two years.
San Francisco Ballet – Primer and London Season Preview
Aimée Tsao, watching San Francisco Ballet for over 35 years now, with a general primer on the company and some thoughts on the repertoire they are bring to London in September 2012…
Scottish Ballet – A Streetcar Named Desire – London
That said, the narrative is graphic and gripping. Scottish Ballet’s dancers prove themselves dramatic actors in supporting roles as well as principal ones….
New York City Ballet – All American bill – Washington
Fortunately, Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story Suite, the final dance of the evening, was anything but tedious. One of the greatest entertainers in ballet, Robbins knew how to keep his audiences awake, engaged, and excited.
San Francisco Ballet – Programs 5 and 6 (Liang/Page premieres) – San Francisco
Calling this ballet a guide (Guide To Strange Places) is not really precise because it’s more like a portal that lets you in and then leaves you on your own to figure out where you are. Whether you have absolutely no sense of direction or can find your way anywhere blindfolded could determine how you explore this terrain
