Bolshoi Ballet – Don Quixote – London
★★★★✰ 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…
Gallery – Bolshoi Ballet in Don Quixote (dress rehearsal)
Featuring pictures of 2 casts: Margarita Shrainer/Igor Tsvirko & Eleonora Sevenard/Artemy Belyakov. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
New Adventures – Matthew Bourne’s Romeo and Juliet – London
★★★✰✰ Our setting is the Verona Institute in the near future. Here disturbed young people have been locked up for an opaque purpose under the eye of a sadistic jailer… A traumatised Juliet meets a troubled Romeo, and it ends as badly as you might expect.
Bolshoi Ballet – The Bright Stream – London
★★★★★ A wildly surreal comic turn involves a dog riding a bicycle, both cunningly choreographed. He’s actually a tractor driver in disguise, disrupting sexual assignations.
Gallery – Bolshoi Ballet in The Bright Stream (dress rehearsal)
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Gallery – Bolshoi Ballet in Swan Lake
Featuring pictures of 2 casts: Olga Smirnova/Semyon Chudin & Alyona Kovalyova/Jacopo Tissi. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Bolshoi Ballet – Spartacus – London
★★★★✰ The messages of Grigorovich’s Spartacus may have changed over the half-century since its creation but new generations revel in its theatricality – and the bolshoi power of its performers.
Olga Pericet – The Thorn That Wanted to Be a Flower, or The Flower That Dreamed of Being a Dancer – London
★★★★★ The Cordoban star Olga Pericet’s poetically titled show revealed, wonderfully, a personality too big for flamenco to hold.
Royal Ballet School – Summer Show, ROH Main Stage – London
★★★★✰ The choice of works emphasised ensembles more than individuals. It was interesting to see large numbers of young men dancing together, as well as a more usual female corps de ballet.
Mercedes Ruiz, Eduardo Guerrero and María Moreno – Gala Flamenca – London
★★★★★ As the gala’s artistic director, Liñán brought together four great talents (three dancers and a singer), backed up by an outstanding group of musicians…
Rocío Molina – Fallen From Heaven – London
★★★★✰ Fallen From Heaven (Caido del Cielo) is referenced as the celebration of being a woman, and it is certainly all about one woman.
Royal Ballet School – Holland Park bill (mainly Upper School) – London
★★★★✰ The show overall gave us a good slice of what ballet is in 2019, and just how adaptable the students need to be these days – exciting times for them and exciting for us in the audience as well.
English National Ballet School – 2019 Summer Performance, Celebrating 30 Years – London
★★★✰✰ English National Ballet School is celebrating 30 years since its inception in 1989 – it had just 12 students in that inaugural year. The numbers are ever increasing and there is evidence of significant talents among the graduates this year.
Dutch National Ballet Junior Company – ROH, Young Talent Festival, Quint bill – London
★★★✰✰ Dutch National Ballet Junior Company at the ROH Young Talent Festival with 5 works – No Time Before Time, Fuse, What Got You Here, Fingers in the Air and In The Future.
London Children’s Ballet – Ballet Shoes – London
★★★✰✰ The great achievement of LCB is to mount professional productions, complete with full orchestra, without charging parents for the privilege.
Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras – Sombras – London
★★★★★ Baras’s improvisations were not outpourings of emotion, but concentrated bursts of pure skill, passionately channelled.
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Hobson’s Choice – London
★★★★✰ Big-hearted, whimsical, suffused with equal parts romance and drollness, Hobson’s Choice is a gem of the BRB repertoire – long may it keep being revived.
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Left Unseen and The Rite of Spring – London
★★✰✰✰ Phoenix Dance Theatre’s The Rite of Spring came with tantalising credentials: the company’s first collaboration with Opera North, and a UK debut for the Haitian choreographer Jeanguy Saintus…
Royal Ballet School – ROH, Young Talent Festival, mixed bill – London
★★★★✰ Royal Ballet School at the ROH Young Talent Festival with a mixed bill of over 10, new and old works…
