
Scottish Ballet – The Crucible – Edinburgh
★★★★★ 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…

Ballet Central – 2017 Tour – London
★★★✰✰ 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…

Ballet Black – To Fetch a Pail of Water?, Depouillement, Second Coming – London
All up, another win for Ballet Black – a strong double bill of consequence and contrast preceded by a short amuse-bouche.

Ballet Central and Friends Gala – London
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.

Ballet Black – A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream, Limbo, Two of a Kind – London
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?