★★★✰✰ Though Ida Rubinstein must have been more of a poseuse than a danseuse, especially as she grew older, she had a remarkable career as an impresario. She used her money and social connections to commission creations from great composers, artists and choreographers...
Tag - Bolero
Jann Parry spoke to the internationally renowned Swedish choreographer shortly after the Royal Ballet premiere of his woman with water - they naturally discussed that, but also Covid and his retirement, or not....
★★★✰✰ Program II of the Fall for Dance festival features premieres by Dormeshia and Kyle Abraham, plus excerpts of works by Balanchine and Lar Lubovitch...
★★✰✰✰ Strasbourg 1518 has been lauded as 'head buttingly confrontational' and an original 'dance for today'. It isn't. Familiar Bausch tropes don't really reflect 1518's psychogenic mania, which was communal, or today's experience of isolation, stress and tedium.
★★★★✰ The dance style is a fusion of many elements of South African dance, other African and African diaspora influences, and modern and postmodern dance. It can be both liquid and percussive and has a complexity that is hard to take apart.
★★★★✰ 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.
I don’t really believe in lists, but it’s admittedly fun to look back over the year and reflect on moments that have stayed with me. So here they are, in no particular order…
★★★✰✰ Gregory Maqoma’s theatrical storytelling, a potent mix of a capella, dance styles and scenography, projects a strong universal theme - grief.
★★★✰✰ The extremely good-looking company members are well-trained, versatile dancers...
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart's Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★★✰ It was a pleasure to see this company in such a smart and wide-ranging program. It was even more rewarding to see the Washington Ballet dancers masterly navigating the numerous challenges...
★★★✰✰ 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...
Amici’s production celebrating its 35th anniversary is its first for five years, during which time the company for able-bodied and disabled performers had somewhat slipped from public awareness.
Grass and Jackals possesses what B/olero leaves wanting. Oversized eyebrows painted on each dancer...
It is, of course, a huge show but the commitment the dancers bring to it, the excellence of the dancing and sense of joy they bring to the final movement, make it a very theatrical experience.
Only the official retirement age of 42 requires him to leave the company, alas, though he may be invited back as a guest.
Phoenix Dance Theatre are part way through their Autumn "Particle Velocity" tour - Paul Arrowsmith caught up with them in London at their Royal Opera House Linbury performances...
Still / Current is a marvellously evocative title for Maliphant’s work, capturing the mercurially elusive quality of his choreography and his own dancing. And the good news is that Maliphant is back on stage...
Nicolas Le Riche was fabulously predatory in Bolero, a raging furnace of self-love and sex appeal. One imagines that after the show he must have ravaged a hundred virgins, but maybe he simply went home and soaked his feet in the tub, but in any case, he was magnificent, good taste (and choreography) be damned.