Some Memorable Performances of 2019 – London
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year – the good and the less good…
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance bill – London
★★★✰✰ Once again, Osipova gave it her all – and Osipova’s all is quite something to behold.
Jonathan Goddard and Lily McLeish – While You Are Here – London
★★✰✰✰ While You Are Here is disappointing despite using a cohort of the best contemporary dancers in the country, working with theatre director Lily McLeish and featuring fine design and lighting.
Arthur Pita, Natalia Osipova and Jonathan Goddard – The Mother – London
★★★★✰ The Mother takes already dark source material (a Hans Christian Andersen tale) and plunges even deeper into the nightmare scenario it proposes, giving everything a convincing Russian twist along the way.
Natalia Osipova Film – A Force of Nature Natalia
★★★★★ This is a superbly made film… It draws a portrait of a supreme artist, a woman with exceptional humility, all sensitively handled with warmth and humour.
Yorke Dance Project – Twenty: Playground, Between and Within, Communion, Imprint – London
★★★★✰ By swelling the numbers of her small touring company, Yolande Yorke-Edgell was able to mount a revival of Kenneth MacMillan’s Playground and a 10-strong ensemble for Robert Cohan’s Communion. The programme also included new works by Sophia Stoller and Yorke-Edgell herself.
Merce Cunningham Trust – Night of 100 Solos, Centennial Event – London
★★★★✰ A quote from The Observer’s dance critic, Nigel Gosling, in 1964: ‘Merce Cunningham and his company have burst on the British scene like a bomb …heart-warming proof that here is an art with a future…’
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance bill – New York
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration…
Memorable Performances of 2018 – London
Semperoper Ballett Dresden were another new visitor in the summer, with a programme of Forsythe works, some not seen here before. But Forsythe is a theme this year in himself.
2018 National Dance Awards – Announcement of Nominations
The Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle is pleased to announce the nominations for the 19th National Dance Awards…
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance – London
★★★✰✰ No trade description problems, here. This was exactly what it said on the tin: Natalia Osipova performing pure dance, enhanced only by recorded music and lighting designs varying from the merest of subtle tints to an explosion of floodlights…
Mark Bruce Company – Macbeth – London
★★★✰✰ Violence lurks in every corner of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, from supernatural malevolence to visceral carnage. Mark Bruce’s new take on the production taps into classic horror tropes to animate this force…
Memorable Performances of 2017 – London
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet…
Richard Alston Dance Company – Glint, Tangent, Chacony, Gypsy Mixture – London
★★★★★ The programme ended with a revival of the ebullient and uplifting Gypsy Mixture…
Royal Ballet / Royal Opera – Les Enfants Terribles – London
★★★✰✰ The story line becomes as labyrinthine as the ribbons of tape that criss-cross Paul’s bedroom.
New Movement Collective – Collapse– a period drama – London
★★★★✰ The performers need the sharpest of reactions to deal with the unexpected, negotiating routes through bemused and bedazzled spectators.
Gallery – New Movement Collective in Collapse – a period drama
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Richard Alston Dance Company – An Italian in Madrid, Brisk Singing, Mazur, Stronghold – London
★★★★✰ All-in-all this was an outstanding programme of entertaining dance…
