★★★✰✰ "The English National Ballet 'Nutcracker' is a bit of alright and it's almost bound to send you home happier than you arrived." starts Bruce Marriott's review of a Christmas ballet that can both please and give pause for thought...
Tag - Joseph Caley
★★★★✰ the company pulled off an uplifting performance with energy and charm.
★★★★★ What we are fortunate to be able to witness in these constrained times is an intimate record of otherwise fleeting performances by exceptional artists.
★★★★✰ The recording reveals how unusual the choreography is, as it was in 1965... Dancers in pointe shoes have to adapt to flexed feet, flat-footed parallel positions, torsos bent forward, elbows and wrists held at angles.
★★★★✰ For those of us that have been involved with the company, no matter how small a part, it is clear that the ‘happy family’ that is English National Ballet, reveres and appreciates all who have been part of its 70 year existence.
★★★✰✰ The annual Ballet Icons gala, now in its 14th year, aims to promote Russian culture while providing a Sunday evening's entertainment for Russians in London and ballet-lovers...
★★★★✰ The entire cast is committed to the MacMillan idea of everyone having their own character and story, and the result is a richly detailed picture of the conflicts between poverty and wealth, love and lust.
★★★✰✰ Williamson’s commission – the first of an ambitious Ballet Now programme for new works – was themed on issues of gender and alienation, with Brandon Lawrence being a man struggling for identity...
BRB in George Williamson's new "Embrace" and Alexander Whitley's 2014 hit "Kin". Gallery by Dave Morgan...
★★★★✰ It's a better Sleeping Beauty than the Royal Ballet's, but it benefits enormously from a stellar performance at its heart, a reminder of how civilised ballet can be.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Altogether, a cunningly judged programme that shows off the company at its most engaging...
★★★★✰ The pairing cannily indulges our need for vivid material on these bleak mid-winter nights while also steering us down from the high of the Christmas circuit, with its sugary Nutcrackers and other family-friendly fare.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
★★★✰✰ One of the ballet’s biggest departures from tradition is having the same dancer play Clara and the Sugar Plum Fairy. The reasoning is unclear, but Kase proves versatile enough to pull it off...
★★★★✰ The ENB production of La Sylphide has been staged by three luminaries of Danish ballet, Frank Andersen, Eva Kloborg and Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter, and is, therefore, one supposes, as authentic to the August Bournonville ideals, as possible...
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet’s away-day to Hull, this year’s UK Capital of Culture, was dramatic in its scale: 17 pieces presented over three hours...
★★★✰✰ Bintley has treated Shakespeare’s drama as a masque, full of spectacle, music and dancing, with elusive characters that are more allegorical than realistic. It doesn’t work as a narrative ballet because the sub-plots are too complicated...
★★★✰✰ In a nutshell Bintley's Tempest is a visual triumph but feels slight choreographically and you'd be well advised to mug up on the story before seeing it.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...