★★★✰✰ Once a year Sadler’s Wells puts on Sampled, a pick and mix of the types of dance you might see at the venue. The front stalls seats are taken out, and standing in that area is only a fiver, with cheap tickets in general.
Tag - Raphael Coumes-Marquet
Foteini Christofilopoulou photographs Sadler’s Wells Sampled - featuring Uchenna Dance, Mavin Khoo, Semperoper Ballett, Rambert2, Patricia Guerrero and BirdGang.
The festival was as intensive as ever, with three performances running on seven days, four on one day, some concurrently. The range and quality of dance overall was impressive.
Firebird: To Williamson’s credit, the action, though baffling, never palls. He knows how to deploy a diverse cast, using an interesting vocabulary of classical ballet steps and partnering. He’s obviously fired up his dancers to commit themselves to their roles, flaunting their glitzy costumes with panache. But it’s a muddled piece, overpowered by Stravinsky’s myth-making music.