At least there are some memorable performances to recall from 2021: at the beginning of the year none of us had any idea when we might sit in a theatre and watch live dance again...
Tag - Mats Ek
Jann Parry spoke to the internationally renowned Swedish choreographer shortly after the Royal Ballet premiere of his woman with water - they naturally discussed that, but also Covid and his retirement, or not....
★★★★✰ The full bill features: The Sleeping Beauty Act III, Anemoi (new Valentino Zucchetti), Divertissements: Morgen (Wayne McGregor), Winter Dreams pdd, After the Rain pdd, Woman with water (Mats Ek and new to RB), Voices of Spring pdd.
The full bill features: The Sleeping Beauty Act III, Anemoi (new Valentino Zucchetti), Divertissements: Morgen (Wayne McGregor), Winter Dreams pdd, After the Rain pdd, Woman with water (Mats Ek and new to RB), Voices of Spring pdd. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Hampson has created a naturalistic and, above all, a graceful and harmonious set of steps. It's all so unforced, but it feels right and creates a beautifully rounded and satisfying production.
★★★★✰ 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 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.
★★★★✰ Royal Ballet School at the ROH Young Talent Festival with a mixed bill of over 10, new and old works...
★★★★✰ It's the company's 50th Anniversary season and rather than start it, as you might expect, in Glasgow or Edinburgh, they opened in Scotland's most northerly city, Inverness, with a special premiere and a full-on party for all.
I’m really enjoying being different things throughout the year. Sometimes a dancer, then choreographer and teacher and most recently I had a go at acting again in a feature film by Clara Van Gool...
★★★★✰ It's a better Sleeping Beauty than the Royal Ballet's, but it benefits enormously from a stellar performance at its heart, a reminder of how civilised ballet can be.
"I knew that I had to seize my only chance to have a ballet career. Masha Mukhamedov agreed to teach me privately six days a week for ten months..."
★★★★✰ The highlight of the second half of the programme was Mats Ek’s Pas de Danse, staged by his assistant, Pompea Santoro.
★★★✰✰ Mats Ek’s "Axe" could be the beginning to a new Scandi Noir TV series. There is a man, an axe, a huge pile of wood that he starts to chop with repressed intensity and a visibly distressed wife. It doesn’t look like it will end well.
She found that she came back to perform with the company she left five years ago with a different approach. ‘I know more about why I love to perform...'
★★★✰✰ Jann Parry with an alternative view and detailed account of the Akram Khan Giselle for English National Ballet...
Choreographer Didy Veldman has just formed her own company - Umanoove - and is off touring her latest work, called "The Happiness Project". Time for a brief 5 questions interview we thought...
★★★✰✰ The production nevertheless intrigues the eye and is fueled by the exceptional dancing of the company’s talented and dedicated dancers.
★★★★✰ Having missed the opening night of the BalletBoyz tour, at Sadler’s Wells, a few weeks ago, I caught up with it, just three bus stops away from my home...
★★★✰✰ Sophie Martin's Odette/Odille, despite the costume, steals the show with layers of dramatic nuance on top of the pushed lines of Dawson's steps.