★★★★✰ 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.
Tag - Johan Kobborg
★★★★✰ Alina Cojocaru's choice of works for her brief season at Sadler's Wells provided an insight into her priorities as she reflected on her career: live music-making and dance-making that has something to say.
For the first time, English National Ballet's competition for its junior members was held in the capacious London Coliseum, where the company has been performing The Sleeping Beauty...
★★★✰✰ The good news is that Queen of Spades is a good-looking crowd pleaser and the RDB dancers look fantastic in it - I can't emphasise that enough. Also good that it's a step up from his last commission, Frankenstein - thank goodness, really.
★★★★✰ Kobborg has deconstructed the work; mixing up the narrative’s building blocks before reassembling them in a masterpiece of balance that remains recognisably traditional but is also refreshingly new.
★★★★★ One cannot help but observe that while the programmes of other companies both hit and miss, in terms of their critical appreciation and popular appeal, ENB is continually raising the bar...
★★★✰✰ By way of a défilé, the evening opened with the “Waltz of the Hours” from Balanchine and Danilova’s Coppélia ...Soloist Jennifer Stahl led two dozen girls from the SFB School, adorable in cotton-candy tutus.
The Royal Ballet’s 2015/2016 season is providing big opportunities for James Hay, promoted to First Soloist in June...
Graham Watts talks to an ex-RB Soloist doing well as a Principal at Romanian National Ballet...
Australian audiences are lucky to have La Sylphide in Queensland Ballet’s repertoire...
Jann Parry on the award winning Peter Schaufuss "La Sylphide", not seen in the UK in decades, and Li Cunxin's Queensland Ballet who are bringing it to London this summer. Includes an interview with Cunxin...
Johan Kobborg took over as Director of Bucharest National Ballet just over a year ago. Time for Graham Watts to go and see how they are looking - in two very different bills...
The gala opened with the Act III wedding pas de deux from The Sleeping Beauty, performed by Ekaterina Osmolkina and Guiseppe Picone. No fish-dives in this version – the Russians regard them as vulgar, and Osmolkina could never be vulgar.
Following 3 years directing Royal New Zealand Ballet, Ethan Stiefel is now back in New York - which is where Marina Harss caught up with him...
5 Questions to Shiori Kase. ENB soloist Shiori Kase is on a roll – only yesterday promoted to First Soloist (as of September), she's just won a Gold Medal at the prestigious Jackson International Ballet Competition in the USA and is about to make her debut in Coppelia...
Both as a tribute to Ashton and as a coming-out party, it’s hard to imagine how the festival could have gone better. The ballets are in good hands.
The presence of Cojocaru and Kobborg in Manon, apart from giving such pleasure in itself, lifted the Australian Ballet’s production and took it to a different level. And bouquets to Steven Heathcote for a remarkable performance as well.
A shame – not long for either him or the company to know one another. Three years is not the normal tenure for being artistic director of a company – 5 would be normal and successful ones stay 10 years or more. It’s interesting that one reason for leaving is the difficulty of exploring “other professional projects”. I find that rather surprising – being a...
The best all-round piece of the evening is Hans van Manen’s Variations for Two Couples, from the exquisitely concise choreography by this still-relevant master...
Words with the man and thoughts on the Behind the Scenes at The Royal Ballet book from Graham Watts. Details of his next book too - on Natalia Osipova...