Dance Odysseys at the 2013 Edinburgh Festival with reviews on 20 dance works by Scottish Ballet, Scottish Dance Theatre, Gelabert Azzopardi Companyia de Dansa, James Cousins and Rosie Kay. Also thoughts on 4 rare films and links to much video material and many other reviews. It's big!
Tag - Matthew Bourne
"Alexei Ratmansky’s Flames of Paris is a lot like Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake..." starts Jann Parry's review...
If the choreography was a mixed bag there was a clear flip side, or rather two. This year's standard, particularly on the boys' side, gave cause for celebration at the strength on show...
It is a mixed experience: too long and overworked in places, a dark vision, unevenly realised, with some striking and chilling moments.
5 Questions to Sarah Crompton about her new book "Sadler's Wells - Dance House"
A hit with me and I'm so glad it's a great success in the company's home and a great calling card for touring. It's a particularly useful broadening of Scottish Ballet's repertoire.
While I wasn't wowed by the closer, as I left I couldn't stop talking about the Bhuller and Gable and wishing to see major companies put them both on in full. That and the usual thought: Another year, another fine night from Ballet Central - well done all.
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories this last year...
People talk about wanting to get new and younger audiences in for dance and this was really a great way of achieving it.
He knows he can’t surpass Petipa (or Ivanov for 'Swan Lake') – but he can tweak their scenarios into something uniquely his own. And he’s magnificently served by a cast of just 17, capable of switching roles at the twitch of a fairy’s wing.
As Clement Crisp wrote after Darrell’s death: ‘His ballets are true and fascinating mirrors of their age’. Timing a revival is always tricky. Would we want to see his Beatles ballet, Mods and Rockers (1963), again?
It's the name of the game that one does not necessarily appreciate all plans (or indeed how they crystallise out in practice) but I have to say that Sadler's Wells set a benchmark re new work/experiences and for where you want a progressive art to be.
That said, the company is still on top form. The corps de ballet is flawlessly unified technically, stylistically and musically down to their eyelashes.
The programme included works both old and new but it was not an altogether successful mixture. The dancers looked most at home, and at their most sleek and impressive, in Faster, a work made on them this year by their Artistic Director, David Bintley, evoking the striving of competitors in the Olympics.
...you are pushing the work of female choreographers - where does that spring from?
It is a fabulous evening, funny, sexy and as fast paced as a thriller. This is Bourne’s finest and most inventive work.
Unfortunately, I’m not blessed with the gift of predicting the future, but I will go out on a limb and say that by no means is Matthew Bourne finished creating yet, which means we can all look forward to reading the third edition of this book, liberally sprinkled with even more remarkable insights in another ten years time.
Come the end of 2012, this is likely to be one of my highlights of the year. It's not often I see a show and then book to see the same cast immediately again or pester others to go. The reason is that Jealousy works on so many different levels...