Graham Watts talks to the multi-talented and very much respected Dane Hurst as he is named as the new artistic director of ground breaking Phoenix Dance Theatre. Expect great things to come...
Tag - COVID-19
★★★★✰ The streamed in-house recording of the premiere on 24 October 2020 features Ida Praetorius as the Sylph, Jon Axel Fransson as James and Kizzy Matiakis as the witch, Madge – her last role with the company.
We catch up with Emma Gladstone in the last year of her directorship of London's Dance Umbrella. Eventful times and this year's festival, about to start, is an all-digital affair...
Stella Abrera, the much loved and recently retired American Ballet Theatre principal talks to Oksana Khadarina about her new life as Artistic Director of the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and its much admired Festival. That and putting on a ballet for Alexei Ratmansky in St. Petersburg...
★★★✰✰ PNB kicked off their season in October with a gala that was the first performance on the McCaw Hall stage since February, a mixed programme that showcased an ensemble of excellent dancers in both classical and contemporary choreography...
★★★★✰ Kevin O'Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, came on stage to welcome the return of a paying audience for what turned out to be the opening and closing live performance of the season...
★★★✰✰ Carlos Acosta, ten months in to his directorship of BRB, has provided it with a mixed bunch of shoots for a fresh start. Their first flowering may have been cut short by the closure of theatres but the company has already shown its resilience, and will do so again...
Amy Pearl's lockdown has been defined by NDT who she saw in NY just before lockdown and just caught up with again as they danced live at their home theatre for the first time and streamed the show to the world - a show which included a world premiere by Medhi Walerski and work by Crystal Pite...
★★★✰✰ Program II of the Fall for Dance festival features premieres by Dormeshia and Kyle Abraham, plus excerpts of works by Balanchine and Lar Lubovitch...
Heather Desaulniers dips into the San Francisco Dance Film Festival and reviews three programmes: Merely Marvelous: The Dancing Genius of Gwen Verdon (★★★★✰), Dance Goes On (★★★✰✰) and Uprooted – The Journey of Jazz Dance (★★★★★)
Bruce Marriott, seeing live work for the first time in months, chose to dive in to an evening of new Birmingham Royal Ballet works including a world premiere - Will Tuckett's Lazuli Sky. He was glad he did...
This three-hour compilation of dance films, interviews and discussions celebrates Akram Khan's burning desire to speak out to a wide audience in the occasion of his company's 20th anniversary.
★★★★✰ Lost Dog’s short film, streamed for free by The Place Online was made at the beginning of lockdown and is a eulogy to live performance before the pandemic but also a rumination on life without human contact.
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
★★★★✰ As tentative steps continue to get the dance world back on its feet, the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield has asked three companies to embrace the possibilities of lockdown with a trio of filmed works.
★★★★✰ Despite Covid-19 English National Ballet still ran their unique Emerging Dancer Competition and streamed the night in full to fans. The 2020 winner is Ivana Bueno - "Very evidently a talent to watch", says Jann Parry.
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or "the excellence of the Company’s young talent,” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is live-streamed from ENB's London studios on 22 September and ahead of the that we talk to the finalists – Ivana Bueno, Carolyne Galvao, Miguel Angel Maidana, Victor Prigent...
★★★★✰ Ice Cycle is an unusually beautiful vision suggesting, at times, the effects of global warming, encompassing Sperling’s environmental concerns as well as her choreographic and design mastery.
As lockdown eases ballet is getting out of streaming from living rooms and into the big wide world - Jann Parry looks at six happenings/films involving dancers from Dance Theatre of Harlem, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Alonzo King LINES Ballet & The Royal Ballet
★★★★✰ 21 dance films, sourced from all over the globe and presented by Marquee TV in association with Screen.dance (Scotland’s Festival of dance on screen) and San Francisco Dance Film Festival.