★★★✰✰ Last week’s performance, of a triple bill of Balanchine works, was as normal as anything could be in these abnormal times...
Tag - La Bayadere
★★★★✰ Rojo has achieved an excellent feat of artistic engineering; creating a fully-functioning, enjoyable new model out of a redundant artefact.
★★★★✰ After nearly a year away from dancing for live audiences Australian Ballet are back with a gala - Summertime at the Ballet - and at an unusual location, the Margaret Court Arena in Melbourne.
Stella Abrera, the much loved and recently retired American Ballet Theatre principal talks to Oksana Khadarina about her new life as Artistic Director of the Kaatsbaan Cultural Park and its much admired Festival. That and putting on a ballet for Alexei Ratmansky in St. Petersburg...
David McAllister, about to step down as the artistic director of Australian Ballet, has just released his memoir and it proves enlightening and candid reading about both the company and the man himself...
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or "the excellence of the Company’s young talent,” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is live-streamed from ENB's London studios on 22 September and ahead of the that we talk to the finalists – Ivana Bueno, Carolyne Galvao, Miguel Angel Maidana, Victor Prigent...
I don’t really believe in lists, but it’s admittedly fun to look back over the year and reflect on moments that have stayed with me. So here they are, in no particular order…
★★★★✰ This is a Giselle that is both familiar and new. Watching it on opening night was like seeing a faded painting regain its colors.
★★★★✰ the Mariinsky’s production was a welcome ravishment of vibrant costumes, shimmering jewels, romantic storytelling and sheer entertainment...
★★★★✰ The fewer the speeches, the better the gala – this universal truth seems to have bypassed the organizers at American Ballet Theatre...
★★★★✰ The reason the Bolshoi's Don Quixote is so enjoyable is the gusto with which it is performed. It doesn't aim to be remotely authentically Spanish or even respectful of the original 1869 version...
★★★★★ 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.
★★★★✰ It’s impossible not to be impressed by the range of these works, from introspective and conversational (Symposium) to brilliantly classical (The Seasons) to dramatic (Dnieper).
★★★✰✰ 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...
Marina Harss talks to a legend about another legend and the greatest classical choreographer of them all - Marius Petipa. Full of interesting insights...
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.
★★★✰✰ If The Unknown Soldier is dispiritingly low-key, Wayne McGregor's Infra remains assertively bold...
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time - she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet's production of La Bayadere - her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago...
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible...
★★★★✰ In the past, the Royal Ballet's version, last performed five years ago, has sometimes seemed insubstantial. Not so this time, with a luxury cast in full dramatic mode: Vadim Muntagirov, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova and Gary Avis...