Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance bill – New York
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration…
Royal Ballet – Romeo and Juliet – London
★★★✰✰ Somehow, still at the start of the run, the production seems sanitised, nicely ‘English’ in spite of Nicholas Georgiadis’s imposing Italian Renaissance sets and costumes. Different casts yet to come might bring fresh discoveries…
Annette Page: Tribute to a Ballerina
This programme celebrated Annette Page’s career with the Royal Ballet and supported the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She died at the age of 84 of MND, a cruel disease for a former dancer and an articulate, witty woman…
Memorable Performances of 2018 – London
Semperoper Ballett Dresden were another new visitor in the summer, with a programme of Forsythe works, some not seen here before. But Forsythe is a theme this year in himself.
Royal Ballet – The Unknown Soldier (premiere), Infra, Symphony in C – London
★★★✰✰ If The Unknown Soldier is dispiritingly low-key, Wayne McGregor’s Infra remains assertively bold…
Interview: Mayara Magri, First Soloist, The Royal Ballet
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…
English National Ballet – Manon – Milton Keynes Theatre
★★★★✰ English National Ballet can once more reflect triumphally on another significant success.
Carlos Acosta – Dancer, Directer, Choreographer: ‘I am a man on a mission – I always have been’
“That’s what it’s always been about for me – the necessity to connect with an audience and express myself.”
Gallery – Birmingham Royal Ballet in Romeo and Juliet
With Nao Sakuma and Yasuo Atsuji in the lead roles. Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Birmingham Royal Ballet – Romeo and Juliet – London
★★★★✰ It was a fine team performance from the company but particular honours go to Momoko Hirata’s Juliet who let us know what she was thinking and feeling at every moment.
Kevin and Karen Clifton – Kevin and Karen Dance – London
★★★★✰ This show defied the norm: a counter-intuitive observation about a spin-off from the archetypal routine of a Saturday evening institution that millions of us watch with our feet up.
Interview: Melissa Hamilton, First Soloist, The Royal Ballet
“I knew that I had to seize my only chance to have a ballet career. Masha Mukhamedov agreed to teach me privately six days a week for ten months…”
Viviana Durante on her company and its showcasing of early Kenneth MacMillan works at the Barbican
Viviana Durante on her company and its showcasing of early Kenneth MacMillan works at London’s Barbican on 18 — 21 Apr 2018. Bruce Marriott talks to one of the foremost MacMillan interpreters about her MacMillan celebration showcasing 3 very rarely seen works.
Washington Ballet – Romeo and Juliet – Washington
★★★✰✰ A strikingly beautiful ballerina, with a lissome body and expressive features, EunWon Lee is an ideal Juliet…
San Francisco Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – San Francisco
★★✰✰✰ The efforts of San Francisco Ballet’s artists are sadly misplaced in this largely joyless and wholly unsatisfying rendition of The Sleeping Beauty.
Memorable Performances of 2017 – London
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet…
Memorable Performances of 2017 – New York
Six Performances That Stayed with Me in 2017 – Marina Harss with her personal selection of New York dance memories this last year.
MacMillan Celebrations – Le Baiser de la fee (SB), Concerto (BRB), Jeux (RB) – London
In the first of the mixed bills celebrating Kenneth MacMillan’s ballets, 25 years after his death, “Le Baiser de la fée” intrigued me because the questions it posed about his development as a choreographer…
Scottish Ballet – The Fairy’s Kiss, The Rite of Spring – Glasgow
★★★★✰ Absolutely fascinating… Scottish Ballet should feel very proud of celebrating MacMillan in such a thoughtful way…
