The Frederick Ashton Foundation marked its tenth anniversary with an evening of rarely performed Ashton pieces and a specially commissioned film, Frederick Ashton: Links in the Chain, by Lynn Wake.
Tag - Natalia Makarova
★★★★✰ Marina Harss with thoughts/observations on La Valse, Other Dances, After the Rain pas de deux, Agon, Monumentum Pro Gesualdo, Movements for Piano and Orchestra and Chaconne.
★★★★✰ Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov's account of Swan Lake is spellbinding... if Scarlett's revision of the 1895 scenario makes even less sense than the original.
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart's Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
The Bolshoi Ballet are in London this summer with Spartacus, Swan Lake, The Bright Stream and Don Quixote. One of the world's greatest companies, here are Jann Parry's thoughts on an important visit...
★★★★★ This is a superbly made film... It draws a portrait of a supreme artist, a woman with exceptional humility, all sensitively handled with warmth and humour.
Jann Parry talks to the recently promoted Mayara Magri at an important time - she is about to make her debut as Gamzatti in The Royal Ballet's production of La Bayadere - her first major and leading role in the company she joined 6 years ago...
★★★★✰ In the last several years, the choreographer Alexei Ratmansky has developed a sideline to his main choreographic efforts: the reviving of ballets by Marius Petipa in a way that represents the original choreography with as much fidelity as possible...
★★★★✰ In the past, the Royal Ballet's version, last performed five years ago, has sometimes seemed insubstantial. Not so this time, with a luxury cast in full dramatic mode: Vadim Muntagirov, Marianela Nuñez, Natalia Osipova and Gary Avis...
★★✰✰✰ ...watching La Bayadère can feel like observing an artifact stuck in another era, and indicates the need for a conversation about what a contemporary, forward-thinking repertoire should look like.
★★★★✰ It’s been a very enjoyable homage to Robbins’s versatility...
★★★★✰ There’s nothing like watching a woman crush a man’s neck with her thighs to make you go hmm, maybe that whole #MeToo thing has legs.
The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged "Le Rossignol" in December 1981 as part of a programme commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Stravinsky’s birth... the producer was John Dexter. He told Ashton, back in London, that he could choreograph two dancers as the Nightingale and the Fisherman on stage, while the roles would be sung by opera singers in the orchestra pit...
Dancer, choreographer, actress, teacher, director, writer, and mentor, Carmen de Lavallade is a true artist in every sense of the word – and a true legend.
So how did a good Chilean boy end up dancing ballet in Europe...
★★★✰✰ The program opened and closed with the most recent works: Jessica Lang’s Her Notes and Alexei Ratmansky’s Serenade after Plato’s Symposium. Both premiered at ABT in 2016, and both are works whose inspiration largely comes from their scores.
★★✰✰✰ ...an intriguing idea inflated into unwieldy modern dance-theatre.
★★★★✰ From the moment Kimin Kim enters with a flourish as Solor in Act I of La Bayadère, we know we’re in for a treat.
His is an insider’s account, complete with waspish comments and cameos of the famous people he encountered...
Yet again the Trocks had a fabulous critical reception during their Autumn UK tour and mentioned in nearly every review was Chase Johnsey, or in Trocks speak their petite ballerina Yakatarina Verbosovich. So what makes Chase/Yakatarina tick? Time for an interview...