English National Ballet School – 2019 Summer Performance, Celebrating 30 Years – London
★★★✰✰ English National Ballet School is celebrating 30 years since its inception in 1989 – it had just 12 students in that inaugural year. The numbers are ever increasing and there is evidence of significant talents among the graduates this year.
5 Questions to Iain Mackay, Director of Yorkshire Ballet Seminars
This years Yorkshire Ballet Seminars take place from 13 July to 2 August 2019 – time for a word with Director Iain Mackay about what makes them so special and his plans…
Catching up with Kenneth Tindall on his new work for Northern Ballet (Geisha), other commissions and more…
Northern Ballet recently announced their 50th Anniversary Programme and central to it is Geisha, a new commission for Kenneth Tindall. To be premiered on 14 March 2020, we wanted to know more about Geisha and all the other things, of which there are many, that Tindall is up to…
English National Ballet – Emerging Dancer Competition 2019 – London
★★★✰✰ The 2019 winner is London-born Julia Conway and her success was well deserved.
Sisters Grimm – Inala – London
★★★★✰ This third iteration of Inala under the Sadler’s Wells umbrella seems refreshingly new and the abundance of goodwill promised by the Zulu title was all-pervasive.
Akademi – The Troth – Leicester
★★★★★ 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…
Gallery – Sadler’s Wells Sampled 2018
Featuring: NDT2 (Nederlands Dans Theater 2), Jodelle Douglas, Jesus Carmona, Humanhood, Zenaida Yanowsky, Candoco and Yeah Yellow. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou.
English National Ballet School – Summer Performance 2017 – London
★★★★✰ The highlight of the second half of the programme was Mats Ek’s Pas de Danse, staged by his assistant, Pompea Santoro.
Richard Alston Dance Company – Glint, Tangent, Chacony, Gypsy Mixture – London
★★★★★ The programme ended with a revival of the ebullient and uplifting Gypsy Mixture…
National Youth Dance Company – Tarantiseismic – London
★★✰✰✰ Reviewing a youth dance company is always a tricky thing. These are not professional dancers although everything else about the production is a professional show.
BBC Young Dancer Award 2017
★★★★✰ Nafisah Baba is the BBC Young Dancer for 2017. The 20 year-old contemporary dancer from West London won the award with a diverse trio of dances that grew stronger through the rounds.
Memorable Performances of 2016 – London
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories from the past year…
Rambert – The Creation – London
★★★★✰ This is the largest production yet mounted by Rambert – celebrating its 90th Anniversary, this year – accounting for over 110 performers, including 70 musicians and singers.
Rambert – Tomorrow (Guerin premiere), Terra Incognita, A Linha Curva – London
★★★★✰ The centrepiece of this richly diverse programme was a dance puzzle, perhaps broadly equivalent to a game of three-dimensional chess.
Ballet Central – 2016 Tour – Tonbridge
★★★✰✰ Ballet Central’s 2016 tour visits 17 theatres with 8 diverse works. Bruce Marriott catches up with one of the paciest nights of dance you will find…
Richard Alston Dance Company – An Italian in Madrid, Brisk Singing, Mazur, Stronghold – London
★★★★✰ All-in-all this was an outstanding programme of entertaining dance…
Sadler’s Wells Sampled, the dance taster festival – London
★★★★✰ 2016 marks the tenth annual “Sadler’s Wells Sampled,” a January taster of the London dance house’s upcoming season.
Dance at the Latitude Festival 2015 – Faraway Forest: A Weekend at Latitude
Dance at the Latitude Festival 2015 – Sara Veale with a full report…
Interview – Jane Hackett, Director of National Youth Dance Company
Sara Veale catches up with Jane Hackett, director of National Youth Dance Company, ahead of NYDC’s performance at Latitude Festival on 19 July.
Mark Baldwin & Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Inala – London
Enthusiasm alone doesn’t make a show a success, though, and Inala doesn’t quite succeed in melding all that goodwill into a coherent exploration of dance and music from markedly different traditions.
