★★★✰✰ Akram Khan dedicates his solo Xenos to the anonymous Indian soldiers who lost their lives in the trenches of WW1 fighting a battle that wasn’t theirs.
Tag - Michael Hulls
This three-hour compilation of dance films, interviews and discussions celebrates Akram Khan's burning desire to speak out to a wide audience in the occasion of his company's 20th anniversary.
★★★✰✰ This was indeed a case of Up Close and personal with five intimate pieces variously dosed with Cuban fire and flair...
★★★★✰ In this magical programme of two duets and two short films, Maliphant is investigating weightlessness - not so much defying gravity as conjuring its non-existence.
★★★★✰ It’s another remarkable achievement from Maliphant, conjuring poetry out of a bare stage, light and movement.
★★★✰✰ Sometimes a meeting of diverse dance styles can illuminate both – at other times, it’s not clear what benefit either has gained from the encounter.
★★★★✰ As an almost abstract dance work Until the Lions is outstanding, a spectacular collaboration between dancers, musicians, designers and technicians.
★★★★★ "I cannot recall being so moved at a dance performance for a very long time, if ever."
★★★✰✰ Xenos, which apparently means “stranger” or, more aptly for this piece, “foreigner”, is a tangled mass of many things but, above all, it seems to be an essay on loneliness.
★★★★✰ Duet, the new work for Maliphant and Fouras closes the programme. This has a surprisingly eclectic soundtrack. After bursts of static as if from a radio, a vintage recording of Una furtive lacrima tenderly sung by Caruso...
★★✰✰✰ All the ingredients seemed promising but the evening was disappointing, struggling to recover from the tedium of the dire opening item...
★★★★★ This is Khan’s own personal story, but it achieves a much wider resonance about how we can learn to reconcile ourselves to our past, and to acknowledge where and what we come from as we mature.
★★★★★ The hour-long evening is a magical experience, a testament to the decades-long collaboration between Maliphant and Hulls...
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories from the past year...
★★★✰✰ Three of our leading contemporary choreographers added to the megawatt talent of these two Russian dancers (plus Polunin’s bad boy reputation), seems a surefire recipe for success. However, that’s not entirely the case.
★★★✰✰ No Body was an interesting diversion, that confirms the artistic chops of the technical talent that makes so many shows pop and zing. As an exercise I hope it might be repeated every few years.
'No Body', by Lucy Carter, Michael Hulls and Nitin Sawhney, runs from 7-12 June 2016 at Sadler's Wells Theatre in London.
It sounds like a great combination, and had some stunning moments, but turned out to be an oddly uneven experience in the theatre...
An interview with Adam Kirkham, Carys Staton, Nathan Young and Yu-Hsien Wu of Russell Maliphant Company as they take on roles first created by Guillem and the BalletBoyz. Also advice to graduating students and discussion of Maliphant's approach to creating new work...
Scarlett has somewhat adapted his No Man’s Land since its first season, down-playing the munitions factory in which the women work...