The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
Tag - Melissa Hamilton
★★★★★ Quite some achievement by Pam Tanowitz, to have followed treasured works by Cunningham and Ashton with one that pays homage to both, yet stands on its own as her distinctive tapestry of dance.
Featuring works by Merce Cunningham, Frederick Ashton and Pam Tanowitz. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Three short but densely packed ballets infused with a strong Russian flavour were at the heart of the Royal Ballet’s last bill of the season.
★★★★✰ Wright's ending is the best ever, preserving the assurance of the Grand pas de deux that the future must surely be blissful.
"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 ostensible link between the three works in this mixed bill is that they are by the Royal Ballet's resident choreographers, past and present: Frederick Ashton. Kenneth MacMillan and Wayne McGregor. But none is typical of the choreographers' work...
★★★★✰ Elite Syncopations: Dancers from all five major British ballet companies took part, some doubling up roles in identical outfits so that identifying dancers was confusing. The stand-out solo in both the casts I saw was to the Calliope Rag, Monica Mason’s original role...
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet’s away-day to Hull, this year’s UK Capital of Culture, was dramatic in its scale: 17 pieces presented over three hours...
Hightlight - Yasmine Nagdhi promoted to Principal dancer. Full press release with all Promotions, Joiners and Leavers
★★★★✰ The first Emeralds ballerina, Beatriz Stix-Brunell, could be a water nymph, touching the hands of her suitor, Valeri Hristov, in the opening pas de deux before drifting out of reach.
“I wanted to make a series of portraits of the dancers themselves, as opposed to dancers dancing, to show the character that underpins their performance, to see the determination and sacrifice that it takes to succeed at such a high level.” Rick Guest. What Lies Beneath A book of dancers portraits by Rick Guest Published by PUSH Print in large format, 300mm x 370mm Available at £50...
The final triple bill of the Royal Ballet’s season reverts to its founder’s faith in classical ballet as an expressive language.
Margaret Willis has just been in St. Petersburg, catching up with the Dance Open Festival and also visiting the Vaganova Academy where she had some words with director Nikolai Tsiskaridze...
It’s a truism that any startlingly new dance-maker without an early elite training will have based his (or her) choreography on their own physique...
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
Both Royal Ballet premieres, one by Kim Brandstrup, the other by Liam Scarlett, were surely keepers, bound to be seen again.
Margaret Willis has been busy: in St. Petersburg at the Dance Open Festival Gala and 2 days later in Moscow at the Soul of Dance Ballet Gala. And important awards were given at both...
But this is a really enterprising and unusual use of the Linbury space that leaves you with an intense curiosity to see what Whitley does next.
Featuring The Royal Ballet and Alexander Whitley Dance Company. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...