2018 National Dance Awards – Announcement of Nominations
The Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle is pleased to announce the nominations for the 19th National Dance Awards…
Interview: Mayara Magri, First Soloist, The Royal Ballet
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time – she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet’s production of La Bayadere – her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago…
Carlos Acosta – Dancer, Directer, Choreographer: ‘I am a man on a mission – I always have been’
“That’s what it’s always been about for me – the necessity to connect with an audience and express myself.”
Sarasota Ballet – Monotones I & II, Symphony of Sorrows, There Where She Loved – New York
★★✰✰✰ After viewing Ashton on a bill with works by Ricardo Graziano and Christopher Wheeldon, I’m not worried about Ashton’s relevance nor his resonance with a future audience. …Both the Graziano and Wheeldon posed some problems from what some might consider a “female” perspective.
Dance@TheGrange – Curated by Wayne McGregor & Edward Watson – Grange Festival, Hampshire
★★★★✰ McGregor’s company dancers (in Bach Forms) brought a surging energy, buoying up jewel-like moments from the Royal Ballet stars…
Interview – Annabelle Lopez Ochoa on creating Guernica for SF Ballet’s Unbound Festival
“I don’t know if we can make the world a better place, but we can definitely have the audience think about it.”
San Francisco Ballet – Unbound Festival Program A: works by Alonzo King, Christopher Wheeldon, Justin Peck – San Francisco
★★★★✰ If Helgi Tomasson was hoping that Unbound: A Festival of New Works would generate heated debate on the state of ballet today, his wish has already been fulfilled just one night into the massive festival…
Royal Ballet – Bernstein Centenary: Yugen, The Age of Anxiety, Corybantic Games – London
★★★✰✰ Leonard Bernstein wrote (in 1949): “I have a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium, is really theatre music in some way.’ Many choreographers have taken up the challenge, though his quasi-metaphysical musings have usually eluded them: dance is more corporeal than music.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Bernstein Centenary triple bill incl new McGregor & Wheeldon
The Bernstein Centenary bill includes new works by Christopher Wheeldon (Corybantic Games) and Wayne McGregor (Yugen). Liam Scarlett’s The Age of Anxiety completes the bill. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Royal Ballet – The Winter’s Tale – London
★★★✰✰ The return of Christopher Wheeldon’s The Winter’s Tale in its third revival since 2014 brings newcomers to its many meaty roles. It also introduces new audience members to one of Shakespeare’s late plays, with its convoluted plot.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in The Winter’s Tale
Pictures of 2 casts: Nuñez, Soares, Stix-Brunell, Muntagirov, Mendizabal and Kaneko, Bonelli, Takada, Campbell, Heap. Photographed by Foteini Christofilopoulou.
MacMillan Celebrations – The Judas Tree (RB), The Song of the Earth (ENB) – London
★★★★✰ The second programme commemorating the 25th anniversary of Kenneth MacMillan’s death revealed his very different responses to music, and to human nature.
American Ballet Theatre – The Gift, Songs of Bukovina, Thirteen Diversions – New York
★★★✰✰ In between the speeches and the short films came the dancing. The main attraction was the new Ratmansky work, Songs of Bukovina…
BalletBoyz – Fourteen Days bill – London
★★★★✰ Michael Nunn and Billy Trevitt’s all-male company are on sparkling form right now.
‘The Dreamers Ever Leave You’ – Karen Kain on a unique Royal Ballet & National Ballet of Canada collaboration…
Karen Kain, Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada, on celebrating Canada’s 150th with a joint work that includes NBoCanada and Royal Ballet dancers in a unique London Docklands event on the 12/13 October… that and lots more
New York City Ballet – Liturgy, Polyphonia, Odessa, The Times are Racing – New York
★★★★✰ The oldest piece on the program is Wheeldon’s Polyphonia. Made in 2001, it has stood the test of time. Just last week it was performed at the Fall for Dance festival…
Mikhailovsky Ballet – Cinderella – St. Petersburg
★★★★★ It seems appropriate that I’ve travelled to Russia to find a Cinderella interpreter of movement and spectacle to match up to the genius of Prokofiev’s music.
Royal Ballet – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – London
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon and his scenarist, Nicholas Wright, have made theatrical sense of a nonsensical children’s classic. This Alice, though, is a modern pantomime, not a classic ballet.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
With Akane Takada in the lead role. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Royal Ballet – Opening the New bill – Hull
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet’s away-day to Hull, this year’s UK Capital of Culture, was dramatic in its scale: 17 pieces presented over three hours…
