Jann Parry with some thoughts on the Darcey Bussell gala to raise funds for British Ballet and featuring Ballet Black, Birmingham Royal Ballet, English National Ballet, New Adventures, Northern Ballet, Rambert2, Scottish Ballet and The Royal Ballet.
Tag - Cira Robinson
Birmingham Royal Ballet ★★★✰✰ & Ballet Black ★★★★★ The Suit rewards multiple viewings and it thoroughly merited the opportunity of the bigger platform...
★★★★★ Scottish Ballet has a major critical hit on their hands - this is compelling 21st century watching. It was the premiere you want to see, but so very often don't, with everybody, but everybody, at the top of their game...
★★★★✰ Merging these two works onto the same bill created a powerful double-header of impressive and arresting dance theatre.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★★ Another year and another terrific bill from Ballet Black, mixing two strong and sophisticated works from much sought after international choreographers. ...one of the company's finest nights.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
★★★✰✰ 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...
★★★✰✰ It's rather a scandal that Ballet Black get no regular Arts Council support and yet proportionally they do far more to put new work out there and also before a public that is not your usual ballet crowd.
★★★★✰ I’ve long admired Ballet Black’s efforts to make ballet a more accessible art form to both dancers and audiences who’ve historically been excluded from it.
All up, another win for Ballet Black - a strong double bill of consequence and contrast preceded by a short amuse-bouche.
This glitzy evening proved that the Central School of Ballet has friends in abundance (or perhaps that should be hyphenated to “a-bun-dance”) but the aim of this gala event was clearly to encourage a few more.
Now in its thirteenth year, Ballet Black’s specialness is not the colour of its performers’ skin but the quality and quantity of the works its director, Cassa Pancho, commissions: over 30 new ballets to date. Where else could ballet dancers experience such a cornucopia of creativity?
'Storyville' is a familiar morality tale, but Cira Robinson’s heartfelt commitment as Lola makes us care anew. Hampson has indeed turned her into a star... 'Captured' is a triumph for the company and Martin Lawrance, the choreographer.