Birmingham Royal Ballet & Ballet Black – A Brief Nostalgia, The Suit, Nine Sinatra Songs – London
Birmingham Royal Ballet ★★★✰✰ & Ballet Black ★★★★★ The Suit rewards multiple viewings and it thoroughly merited the opportunity of the bigger platform…
Corali Dance Company with Thick & Tight – Technicolour Everyday bill – London
★★★✰✰ Even as I leave the show not really having understood every bit of it, I’m touched by the multi-skilled performers and their unforced honesty.
Lost Dog – Juliet and Romeo: A Guide to Long Life & Happy Marriage – London
★★★✰✰ Ben Duke’s speciality, in the works he devises for Lost Dog, the company he founded in 2004 with Raquel Meseguer, is conflating high art with low life – epic literature with everyday banalities.
Images Ballet Company – Distant Beauties, Concerto for Joyce and Dennis, Handsfree, Scenes of Death and Disaster – London
★★★★✰ This year’s Images Ballet Company is 8 strong, small in the graduate school scheme of things, and yet their show was one of the most exciting I’ve seen in years with a wonderful and eclectic choice of repertoire, danced with passion and verve.
Washington Ballet – Balanchine, Ratmansky, Tharp bill – Washington
★★★✰✰ Their hunger for dance – that sense of palpable excitement to be onstage and in the moment – was particularly evident during the company’s premiere of Ratmansky’s Seven Sonatas.
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Until.With / Out.Enough, Tearfall, Bloom – London
One essential factor in the current success of Phoenix is a cohort of excellent dancers…
Twyla Tharp Countrified – working with Carolina Chocolate Drops, Tiler Peck and Robert Fairchild
Twyla Tharp loves Americana. She’s made dances to Shaker hymns and to the crooning voice of Frank Sinatra, and whipped up steps to the super-sophisticated piano tunes of Willie “The Lion” Smith. So it’s no surprise…
Royal Danish Ballet & School – Come Fly Away, The Fable Maker – Copenhagen
…assuming that the company acquired Come Fly Away in the hopes of selling a lot of tickets and bringing in new audiences, it’s been a terrific success: the whole run is sold out …and I imagine that the standing ovation the night I was there is repeated every time.
Smuin Ballet – XXtremes: Seiwert, Kylian and Smuin bill – San Francisco
Earlier this month Smuin Ballet danced their XXtremes bill in San Francisco with works by Amy Seiwert, Jiri Kylian and Michael Smuin. Aimée Tsao with thoughts on the bill and where the company might be heading…
Joffrey Ballet – American Legends bill – Chicago
The second movement (of Son Of Chamber Symphony) is a sumptuous duet, performed by Victoria Jaiani and Fabrice Calmels, an on-stage pair made in heaven.
Washington Ballet – Twyla Tharp: All American bill – Washington
With its new program titled Twyla Tharp: All American, the Washington Ballet paid homage to the high priestess of American dance…
