★★★✰✰ Though Ida Rubinstein must have been more of a poseuse than a danseuse, especially as she grew older, she had a remarkable career as an impresario. She used her money and social connections to commission creations from great composers, artists and choreographers...
Tag - Michel Fokine
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet did themselves a lot of good with the last new bill of the season - a one-off celebration of Margot Fonteyn. There was much to be reminded of and be proud of.
★★★★✰ Kobborg has deconstructed the work; mixing up the narrative’s building blocks before reassembling them in a masterpiece of balance that remains recognisably traditional but is also refreshingly new.
★★★★✰ It’s always exciting to discover a new side of an artist. For this, and for an immensely entertaining show, we have to thank Matthew Bourne.
★★★★✰ It was a pleasure to see this company in such a smart and wide-ranging program. It was even more rewarding to see the Washington Ballet dancers masterly navigating the numerous challenges...
★★★✰✰ Ethan Stiefel’s Frontier, his first significant commission, had all the right ingredients... Yet the ballet, with its space travel theme, didn’t leave much of an impression...
★★★★✰ American Ballet Theatre’s spring season has turned into a kind of voyage into the mind of Alexei Ratmansky, its choreographer-in-residence since 2009.
★★★★✰ It isn’t often that a gala program proves satisfying, but this one was the exception.
★★✰✰✰ What’s going on in the head office at the Mariinsky Ballet?
★★★★✰ 2016 marks the tenth annual “Sadler’s Wells Sampled,” a January taster of the London dance house’s upcoming season.
In all, this was a tremendously entertaining and well-received program; but at the same time it left an unsettling impression that the Russian company is holding on to its eminent past with all its might, relying heavily on well-worn
Too much Chopin? Perhaps.
...the men Ivan Putrov has chosen for his latest Men in Motion programme are exceptional dance-interpreters, not self-glorifiers...
ABT's run of Les Sylphides this season are different - after research, the company, under their musical director Ormsby Wilkins, have rediscovered a 1941 orchestration by Benjamin Britten. Marina Harss reveals all in conversation with Wilkins...
It’s good to see the company perform Sylphides again after a hiatus of eight years. The style hasn’t eroded. ...The dancers believe in it.
Nijinsky's 'Jeux', like 'Rite', is in its centenary year - lesser known it may be but Archer & Hodson give fascinating detail on its creation and the thought that went into putting on, at UNCSA, their reconstructed version earlier this year.
...it’s that ambiguity in their performances — the tension between seriousness and satire — that makes the company such a joy to watch.
To be honest I don't think her first announcements are a landmark in repertoire terms - but it was never going to be unless some ballet fairy deposited a few extra million in the company coffers to allow instant change.
Bausch is a mystery. To some, she represents the summit of poetry and expression, worthy of a cult-like following. Clearly, these dancers derive great emotional sustenance from performing her work. And it suits them. But, with the exception of Gillot’s solo and a few moments here and there, it left me cold.