★★★★✰ Rather than succumb to a COVID-19 hiatus, RAWdance pivoted to a dance-on-camera format for the CONCEPT Series’ 28th edition, and presented seven new short films created by various artists over the past few months...
Tag - COVID-19
Royal Danish Ballet's Tobias Praetorius is an anomaly, a young dancer – he’s only 24 – who is already interested in playing character roles. He is also a choreographer and Marina Harss catches up with him about his latest project - a 'Pixiballet' (aimed at children) based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Princess and the Pea...
★★★✰✰ Although An Evening with Scottish Ballet could have been better presented by the Edinburgh Festival, the programme showcases an enterprising company full of ideas...
Alexei Ratmansky, the Covid-19 Interview - “Its’ like a dress rehearsal for retirement and it turns out that I’m not ready for it.”
★★★★✰ The Kaatsbaan Summer Festival offers the respite of communication without words, of the beauty of the body moving freely through space, and of shared experience.
★★✰✰✰ 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.
★★★★✰ One silver lining to the pandemic has been getting to see companies online that I have been largely unfamiliar with and Ballet Hispanico is a real find...
New York City Center is streaming some ballet master classes, curated and hosted by Alastair Macaulay, and involving Misty Copeland, Sara Mearns and Tiler Peck. The coaches/guests include Nina Ananiashvili, Merrill Ashley, Alessandra Ferri, Stephanie Saland and Pam Tanowitz.
★★★★✰ / ★★★★★ If there have been better examples of substantial dance films made during these trying times then I have yet to see them.
★★★★★ Choreographers (Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Didy Veldman, Andrew McNicol) and performers are providing us with amazing records of what they can achieve in the strangest of times.
★★★★✰ Rooms2020 retains Sokolow’s intensely expressive choreography, which makes it a striking documentation of the aloneness and alienation that can pervade this time of pandemic.
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon has woven a lot of narrative threads into his ballet spectacular.
Dutch National Ballet, under director Ted Brandsen, have made a splendid response to COVID-19, streaming 8 new digital dances in the last 3 months. Graham Watts on many interesting and absorbing works, varying from ★★✰✰✰ to ★★★★★
★★★✰✰ Wayne McGregor’s first full-length creation for the Royal Ballet, Woolf Works, inspired by Virginia Woolf, remains one of his best works to date.
★★★★★ What we are fortunate to be able to witness in these constrained times is an intimate record of otherwise fleeting performances by exceptional artists.
★★★★✰ The singers had the lions' share of the concert, with just two pas de deux by Royal Ballet couples, Matthew Ball and Mayara Magri, Reece Clarke and Fumi Kaneko.
Carlos Acosta chats to Graham Watts about how things are going after his first few months at the artistic helm of Birmingham Royal Ballet & the impact that Covid-19 has had on his plans...
★★★★✰ The recording reveals how unusual the choreography is, as it was in 1965... Dancers in pointe shoes have to adapt to flexed feet, flat-footed parallel positions, torsos bent forward, elbows and wrists held at angles.
With one common factor, music by Igor Stravinsky, Scottish Ballet (SB) deliver two excellent and very contrasting performances which were filmed at the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh in 2017.
★★★★★ Though the concert was a treat, could the Royal Opera House please try raising our spirits in future streamings, and give the Royal Ballet the prominence it deserves.