★★★✰✰ Jessica Lang's Wink is an attractive piece, well designed and well made with a clear structure.
Tag - Elisha Willis
Birmingham Royal Ballet: Taming of the Shrew (Birmingham) and Northern Ballet: Jane Eyre (Leicester)
★★★✰✰ for BRB's troublesome fun packed Taming of the Shrew and ★★★★✰ Northern Ballet's Jane Eyre with Hannah Bateman in the lead...
★★★✰✰ "... Wink is a 4 star piece. We need to see more of Jessica Lang’s work..."
Les Rendezvous is 21 minutes of classical movement perfection, but Alexander Whitley comes surprisingly close to besting it with his 20-minute more modern take on ballet - Kin.
To celebrate his 20th year as artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet, David Bintley has revived the first work he created in the post – Carmina burana...
...from the off we all knew it was a worthy gift (to Birmingham) and 24 years on it's still routinely called the best by all who have seen a few.
Gillian Lynne has made Helpmann and Benthall's wartime collaboration into a gutsy dramatic ballet, probably with more choreography than Helpmann attempted.
In his programme note, Bintley claims to have foregone sexual romance in favour of ‘something more mystical and subtle’, connected with Japanese veneration of its Imperial family. It doesn’t resonate in this royal kingdom.
Bintley has created a solidly entertaining family work that never bores but never soars to another emotional level, either...
All up, I came out entertained and it's a piece that will endure. And if all the company can conqueror Act 1 there will be smiling families all the way, I think - smiling at the drama and the movement.
The programme included works both old and new but it was not an altogether successful mixture. The dancers looked most at home, and at their most sleek and impressive, in Faster, a work made on them this year by their Artistic Director, David Bintley, evoking the striving of competitors in the Olympics.
Jessica Lang's Lyric Pieces ...is light-as-a-feather work of the utmost good taste - in fact just plain gorgeous.
Good to see BRB presenting 2 premieres as part of International Dance Festival Birmingham... A good afternoon.
...the evening really belonged to Robert Parker, giving his last performance in London and challenging memories of almost any of his predecessors. Whilst being very, very charming he also has some of the toughness which I think Ashton originally intended, and the sincerity of his regret at the end was entirely convincing. He will be sadly missed.