★★★★✰ That Sarasota Ballet, a relatively small company, performs Giselle so well is a testimony the dancers’ hard work & Barbieri’s abilities as a stager.
Tag - Frederick Ashton
★★★★✰ The uniqueness of this R&J lies not with Sergei Polunin but in the love letter it represents between the choreographer, Johan Kobborg, and his life partner, Alina Cojocaru.
★★★★★ Thanks to Yolande Yorke-Edgell and her company, Robert Cohan was able to continue creating dance works for performance up until his death in January this year at the age of 95...
The Frederick Ashton Foundation marked its tenth anniversary with an evening of rarely performed Ashton pieces and a specially commissioned film, Frederick Ashton: Links in the Chain, by Lynn Wake.
★★★✰✰ Though Ida Rubinstein must have been more of a poseuse than a danseuse, especially as she grew older, she had a remarkable career as an impresario. She used her money and social connections to commission creations from great composers, artists and choreographers...
Both the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet are opening their 2021/22 seasons with the same ballet - Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. Jann Parry takes a look at how one of the most admired narrative ballets of the 20th century came to be and details of the many dancing debuts we can look forward to...
★★★★✰ The 2021 Royal Ballet School Summer Show, on the Royal Opera House Main Stage, was a different affair to normal with many of the White Lodge Junior School students physically absent because of Covid restrictions. But there was much to celebrate and lots of new work on display too...
★★★★✰ The full bill features: The Sleeping Beauty Act III, Anemoi (new Valentino Zucchetti), Divertissements: Morgen (Wayne McGregor), Winter Dreams pdd, After the Rain pdd, Woman with water (Mats Ek and new to RB), Voices of Spring pdd.
Feature - The Royal Ballet School recently danced a 'lost' Ninette de Valois ballet, "The Arts of the Theatre", reconstructed by Anna Meadmore. Jann Parry with a full report on an interesting excavation of the early days of British ballet.
★★★★✰ After months apart, Morris and his dancers have finally been reunited in the company’s studios. The result is Live From Brooklyn, a 45-minute program that includes a new work, Tempus Perfectum, set to Brahms...
★★★✰✰ While Sarasota Ballet’s audiences in Florida may be familiar with much of the Ashton repertoire (more so than many British ballet lovers), international subscribers to Sarasota’s digital offerings have been able to catch up with some little-seen gems.
★★★★✰ The programs are a mix of revivals and new works, many by company-members or up-and coming choreographers. Diana Byer, the artistic director, has also developed a close relationship with the British choreographer Richard Alston...
★★★★✰ George Balanchine's "Stravinsky Violin Concerto" has just been streamed by NYCB - Jann Parry on a complex and effervesent masterwork, if Balanchine stated that it was simply his response to Stravinsky’s music...
★★★★✰ Program 3 features all-British choreographers: Peter Wright, Peter Darrell, Christopher Wheeldon, Matthew Bourne and Kenneth MacMillan. The exception is a solo by American Dominic Walsh, created for his own contemporary dance company. ...Some of the selections are probably unfamiliar to American audiences, as well as to British ballet fans of a younger vintage.
★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
★★★★✰ 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...
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 (★★★✰✰)
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon has woven a lot of narrative threads into his ballet spectacular.
★★★★★ 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.
★★★★★ If you want an antidote to any miserable lockdown mood, La Fille mal gardée cannot fail to lift your spirits and allow you to marvel at some really first-rate dancing.