★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
Tag - Jasper Conran
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 (★★★✰✰)
★★★★✰ 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.
★★★✰✰ A very mixed bill... Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa (★★✰✰✰), Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour (★★★★✰) and Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern (★★★★✰)
Jasper Conran is producing new designs for Christopher Wheeldon’s "Within the Golden Hour", to be premiered by the Royal Ballet on the 8 May 2019. Jann Parry talks to Conran about the designs and his earlier and extensive work for David Bintley at Birmingham Royal Ballet…
★★★★✰ Wink, best seen from above, is a valuable addition to BRB’s repertoire. So is José Limon’s The Moor’s Pavane, created in 1949.
What the programme showed was that, unlike most of other ballet choreographers in Britain today, Bintley's work isn’t primarily about the pas de deux.
Ultimately this was a very human take on the 'Dream' - full of emotional punch, fun and bold movement in a clever modern staging. It's a production that you could take anywhere...