Kate Prince and Sting – Message in a Bottle – London
★★★✰✰ The idea of setting a story about a refugee family to the songs of Sting was inevitably an enforced marriage of his diverse lyrics with a narrative for which they were never intended.
Galactik Ensemble – Optraken – London
★★★✰✰ Hats in the air for these five guys from France for coming up with something new, which requires nothing but their own ability to dodge things and stay alive!
Luca Silvestrini’s Protein – The Little Prince – London
★★★★✰ Silvestrini has fashioned a striking theatrical experience in perfect harmony with this timeless story, capped by a triumphal performance in the title role.
ZooNation: The Kate Prince Company – Some Like It Hip Hop – London
★★★★✰ Some Like it Hip Hop is full of quirky humour, great music and dance, enjoying top-notch performances throughout the whole cast of sixteen.
Fame the Musical – London
★★★★✰ With a strong and familiar story, an excellent songbook, well performed, and a pacy theatrical momentum, it is highly recommended.
London Children’s Ballet – Ballet Shoes – London
★★★✰✰ The great achievement of LCB is to mount professional productions, complete with full orchestra, without charging parents for the privilege.
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Left Unseen and The Rite of Spring – London
★★✰✰✰ Phoenix Dance Theatre’s The Rite of Spring came with tantalising credentials: the company’s first collaboration with Opera North, and a UK debut for the Haitian choreographer Jeanguy Saintus…
Sisters Grimm – Inala – London
★★★★✰ This third iteration of Inala under the Sadler’s Wells umbrella seems refreshingly new and the abundance of goodwill promised by the Zulu title was all-pervasive.
5 Questions to choreographer Ruth Brill, about to unveil ‘Peter & The Wolf’ for Birmingham Royal Ballet
We quickly catch up with choreographer Ruth Brill about her latest work for BRB, how she creates and what else she is up to… she’s a busy bee!
New English Ballet Theatre – The Four Seasons, Remembrance – London
★★★✰✰ Both pieces are demanding and elicit some impressively stylish moments, though there’s a fair amount of unevenness…
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Trocks) – Les Sylphides bill – London
★★★★✰ The curtain calls for Robert Carter’s “Dying Swan” are nearly as long as the ballet itself and just as funny.
Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (Trocks) – Programme A, Swan Lake bill – London
★★★★★ The Trocks’ version of Swan Lake (or Lac, as it used to be known) restores some Soviet era removals. Benno, the hero’s best friend and supporter, is back, as are mime sequences, mostly mystifying the participants…
Gilles Brinas’ Che Malambo – London
★★★✰✰ Malambo is a dance form rooted in the traditions of the gaucho (South American cowboys), evolving from long nights by the campfire on the cattle trails of Las Pampas…
Phoenix Dance Theatre – Windrush: Movement of the People, Calyx, Shadow – London
★★★★✰ Watson, a child of the Windrush generation, showed movingly here just what a “hostile environment” existed for these migrants from the moment they arrived.
Motionhouse – Charge – London
★★✰✰✰ The theme of Charge was energy – how electricity shapes our world and powers our bodies and minds; it was created with the input of scientists at the University of Oxford.
Germán Cornejo – Tango After Dark – London
★★★★★ I cannot imagine that partnered dance gets any better than this.
Jakop Ahlbom Company – Lebensraum – London
★★★★✰ There are some extremely demanding physical comedy routines incorporated into Lebensraum. Even some of the throwaways are wince-inducing…
Mark Murphy’s V-TOL – Out of this World – London
★✰✰✰✰ It wants to be a seat-of-your-pants psychological chiller and a heartbreaking love story. It is neither.
Motionhouse – Scattered – London
★★★★✰ Weaker choreography might easily be overshadowed by the monumental capacity of the set and motion graphics, but Finnan’s work is equally imposing…
