Diana Vishneva's push for the new has continued through the Covid crisis and we talk to her about her latest project, Imprint in Motion. It's an amalgam of dance, music, video, and fine arts, created and filmed during lockdown in the halls of Moscow’s Pushkin Museum...
Tag - Mariinsky Ballet
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...
Alexei Ratmansky, the Covid-19 Interview - “Its’ like a dress rehearsal for retirement and it turns out that I’m not ready for it.”
The Royal Ballet's Vadim Muntagirov talks about making the most of lockdown and getting ready to dance again for the Royal Opera House's Live from Covent Garden transmission on Saturday night (20 June 2020), where he is dancing Ashton's seldom-seen "Dance of the Blessed Spirits"...
★★★★✰ The annual Icons gala provides the chance to see dancers who don't often appear in London...
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet's current production of The Sleeping Beauty, dating back to 2006, is a homage to Ninette de Valois and her faith that Marius Petipa's Imperial Russian ballet should be the flagship of her British company.
★★★★✰ the Mariinsky’s production was a welcome ravishment of vibrant costumes, shimmering jewels, romantic storytelling and sheer entertainment...
★★★✰✰ This three-act three-hour-long Paquita is a brainchild of Smekalov, who is a second soloist with the company. He wrote his own libretto, largely borrowing from the Cervantes novella La Gitanilla...
★★★✰✰ The extremely good-looking company members are well-trained, versatile dancers...
★★★★✰ 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...
The Bolshoi Ballet are in London this summer with Spartacus, Swan Lake, The Bright Stream and Don Quixote. One of the world's greatest companies, here are Jann Parry's thoughts on an important visit...
★★★★✰ As if an Ashton rarity weren’t reason enough to catch this program, there was also the presence of Marcelo Gomes, former much-admired principal dancer from American Ballet Theatre, to recommend it.
★★★★✰ When Kent took the helm of Washington Ballet ...one of her goals was to raise the standard of classical technique and shape the company into a world-class ballet institution. Judging by this production, she is on the right track.
To celebrate 10 year of live relays the Royal Opera House is hosting a Cinema Festival of past works in the newly rebuilt Linbury Studio Theatre. Jann Parry was there for the screening of Ashton's Sylvia (recorded in 2005) and which included Darcey Bussell reminiscing about dancing the lead role...
★★★✰✰ If The Unknown Soldier is dispiritingly low-key, Wayne McGregor's Infra remains assertively bold...
★★★★✰ 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...
★★★✰✰ It’s fascinating to see how Balanchinean charm and wit are interpreted by dancers for whom the Balanchine repertoire is more of a foreign language.
★★★✰✰ Half-narrative and semi-abstract, ISADORA hop-skips through the dancer’s life; it’s described in the program notes as a “freely interpreted biography,” and it cherry-picks around unsavory elements...
The occasion was the 15th anniversary of the Ekaterina Maximova Arabesque Ballet Competition named, since 2012, after the late and much-loved Bolshoi ballerina, and organised by her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev...