★★★✰✰ The annual Ballet Icons gala, now in its 14th year, aims to promote Russian culture while providing a Sunday evening's entertainment for Russians in London and ballet-lovers...
Tag - National Ballet of Spain
★★★✰✰ This year's Russian Ballet gala was ostensibly in honour of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa's birth. Any choreography attributed to him was mostly a long way 'after Petipa', but it's always fun to see excellent Russian dancers deliver pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
★★★✰✰ The most interesting item of the programme was definitely the revival of Roland Petit’s L’Arlésienne, created in 1974 when he was director of the National Ballet of Marseille.
★★★✰✰ Every gala needs a revelation, and this one was provided by Sergio Bernal, a Spanish dancer who dominated the stage in an imperious farruca solo from Antonio’s flamenco version of The Three Cornered Hat...
More from the Cannes Dance Festival and director Brigitte Lefèvre definitely kept the best for the last night with Johan Inger’s full-length production of Carmen performed by the National Ballet of Spain...
For the festival Brigitte Lefèvre chose an eclectic mixture of popular and audacious programmes from twelve different companies – mainly regional French companies... some smaller independent groups and international companies from Korea, Argentina and Spain.
There were wonderful performances by Ekaterina Borchenko and Leonid Sarafanov – dancers you would like to see a lot more of. But three works by the same choreographer was too much of the same dish on the menu.