Royal Danish Ballet – The Queen of Spades – Copenhagen
★★★✰✰ 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.
Viviana Durante Company – Kenneth MacMillan: Steps Back in Time bill – London
★★★★✰ All credit to Viviana Durante (supported by Royal Ballet, Ballet Black and Scottish Ballet dancers) for contributing to the 25th anniversary of Kenneth MacMillan’s death with recreations of his early work.
Royal Ballet – Obsidian Tear, Marguerite and Armand, Elite Syncopations – London
★★★★✰ The ostensible link between the three works in this mixed bill is that they are by the Royal Ballet’s resident choreographers, past and present: Frederick Ashton. Kenneth MacMillan and Wayne McGregor. But none is typical of the choreographers’ work…
Gallery – Viviana Durante Company in Kenneth MacMillan: Steps Back in Time
Works performed: House of Birds, Danses Concertantes and Laiderette by dancers from The Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet and Ballet Black. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Viviana Durante on her company and its showcasing of early Kenneth MacMillan works at the Barbican
Viviana Durante on her company and its showcasing of early Kenneth MacMillan works at London’s Barbican on 18 — 21 Apr 2018. Bruce Marriott talks to one of the foremost MacMillan interpreters about her MacMillan celebration showcasing 3 very rarely seen works.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Obsidian Tear, Marguerite and Armand, Elite Syncopations
A triple bill of works by Wayne McGregor, Frederick Ashton and Kenneth MacMillan. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Royal Ballet / Charlotte Edmonds – Piggy in the Middle, Sink or Swim – London
★★★✰✰ Piggy in the Middle is, in part, Edmonds’ tribute to Kenneth MacMillan, the 25th anniversary of whose death has been marked during the Royal Ballet’s 2017/2018 season.
Royal Ballet – Manon – London
★★★★✰ It’s a myth that Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon was ever regarded as a failure. Critics may initially have had reservations but audiences have enjoyed it from its first season in 1974 throughout its many revivals…
Ballet Black – The Suit, A Dream Within a Midsummer Night’s Dream – London
★★★★★ Another year and another terrific bill from Ballet Black, mixing two strong and sophisticated works from much sought after international choreographers. …one of the company’s finest nights.
Royal Ballet – Bernstein Centenary: Yugen, The Age of Anxiety, Corybantic Games – London
★★★✰✰ Leonard Bernstein wrote (in 1949): “I have a deep suspicion that every work I write, for whatever medium, is really theatre music in some way.’ Many choreographers have taken up the challenge, though his quasi-metaphysical musings have usually eluded them: dance is more corporeal than music.
Lost Dog – Juliet and Romeo: A Guide to Long Life & Happy Marriage – London
★★★✰✰ Ben Duke’s speciality, in the works he devises for Lost Dog, the company he founded in 2004 with Raquel Meseguer, is conflating high art with low life – epic literature with everyday banalities.
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch – Viktor – London
★★★★✰ It’s impossible to make coherent sense of a Bausch piece, whatever the source of her inspiration.
English National Ballet – Song of the Earth, La Sylphide – London
★★★★✰ 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.
Memorable Performances of 2017 – London
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Arcadia, Le Baiser de la fée, ‘Still Life’ at the Penguin Café – London
★★✰✰✰ Bintley’s ‘Still Life’ at the Penguin Café saves a dispiriting evening by providing nimble demi-character dancing with a timely message, first delivered nearly 20 years ago.
Cesar Morales – Principal Dancer, Birmingham Royal Ballet
So how did a good Chilean boy end up dancing ballet in Europe…
MacMillan Celebrations – Gloria (NB), The Judas Tree (RB), Elite Syncopations (RB+Guests) – London
★★★★✰ Elite Syncopations: Dancers from all five major British ballet companies took part, some doubling up roles in identical outfits so that identifying dancers was confusing. The stand-out solo in both the casts I saw was to the Calliope Rag, Monica Mason’s original role…
English National Ballet – Song of the Earth, La Sylphide – Manchester
★★★★✰ 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…
MacMillan Celebrations – Le Baiser de la fee (SB), Concerto (BRB), Jeux (RB) – London
In the first of the mixed bills celebrating Kenneth MacMillan’s ballets, 25 years after his death, “Le Baiser de la fée” intrigued me because the questions it posed about his development as a choreographer…
Gallery – MacMillan Celebrations – Concerto, Le Baiser de la fee, Elite Syncopations
Featuring dancers from Birmingham Royal Ballet, Scottish Ballet, The Royal Ballet, English National Ballet and Northern Ballet. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
