★★★★★ The Trocks' version of Swan Lake (or Lac, as it used to be known) restores some Soviet era removals. Benno, the hero's best friend and supporter, is back, as are mime sequences, mostly mystifying the participants...
Tag - London
★★★★✰ Directed by Kenrick ‘H20’ Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante, the return to the Barbican of Blak Whyte Gray, is again a triumph.
★★★✰✰ 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...
★★★✰✰ Rarely seen in London apart from performances at Breakin’ Convention, French choreographer Pierre Rigal brings something different to the hip-hop dance theatre scene with Scandale.
★★✰✰✰ Cherkaoui looks older than his years, so much so that his relationship in Play with Shivalingappa risks being unsettling. As dancers, they are no longer equals, as they must have been in 2008.
★★★★✰ Velvet Petal is Darkin’s latest work for the company, created in 2017 after she read Just Kids, Patti Smith’s memoir about her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1970s.
★★★✰✰ What I loved about it was that none of the acts fitted into neat categories but spilled out through porous art boundaries.
★★✰✰✰ Although the first night audience was moved to a standing ovation, Swan Lake can and should be so much more than this stylised ritual...
★★★★✰ Far from being just one more interpretation of the ubiquitous Carmen, this Cuban version is a unique retelling of the popular narrative, superbly performed.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
East London Dance, Hofesh Shechter Company and LIFT Festival East Wall: Storm the Tower ★★★★✰ London, Tower of London eastwall.org www.hofesh.co.uk www.liftfestival.com www.eastlondondance.org Sitting outside on a balmy summer evening in London, watching the performances of East Wall unfold against the backdrop of the imposing Tower of London is a rare treat. Life gets even better when the two...
★★★✰✰ Abreu is a remarkable performer, with a technique developed from forms of Brazilian dance and martial arts that enables him to sink into the floor and rise with resilience.
★★★✰✰ Malambo is a dance form rooted in the traditions of the gaucho (South American cowboys), evolving from long nights by the campfire on the cattle trails of Las Pampas...
★★★✰✰ A matinee in two halves: fine before the interval, with dire, dreary choreography in the second half. Thank goodness for the exhilarating Grand Défilé at the close.
★★★✰✰ This summer's showcase of English National Ballet School's students was the first under its new director, Carlos Valcarcel... The Wimbledon programme consisted of two creations by him, two by students, and excerpts from The Sleeping Beauty as a conclusion.
★★★★✰ World-class dancers... it's the dancers' polish and power that raises all they do up another level.
Works by Crystal Pite, Sol Leon and Paul Lightfoot. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ Semperoper's dancers distort the classical ballet line more than the Paris Opera Ballet's (or ENB's) and don't bother much with fifth positions or precise épaulement for Forsythe's endless tendus. They seem contemporary dancers rather than étoiles being outrageous.
Nederlands Dans Theater is paying London’s Sadler’s Wells a short visit (26-29 June) with an interesting bill of works by Crystal Pite, Marco Goecke & the duo Paul Lightfoot & Sol Leon.
Featuring "Enemy in the Figure", "Neue Suite" & "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated". Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...