The choreographer & Ballet Zurich director talks about creating a new dramatic work for the Bolshoi based on Virginia Woolf's 'Orlando', on working with the Moscow dancers and the general travails of dance creation during a world-changing pandemic.
Tag - Romeo and Juliet
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or "the excellence of the Company’s young talent,” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is live-streamed from ENB's London studios on 22 September and ahead of the that we talk to the finalists – Ivana Bueno, Carolyne Galvao, Miguel Angel Maidana, Victor Prigent...
Alexei Ratmansky, the Covid-19 Interview - “Its’ like a dress rehearsal for retirement and it turns out that I’m not ready for it.”
New York City Center is streaming some ballet master classes, curated and hosted by Alastair Macaulay, and involving Misty Copeland, Sara Mearns and Tiler Peck. The coaches/guests include Nina Ananiashvili, Merrill Ashley, Alessandra Ferri, Stephanie Saland and Pam Tanowitz.
Carlos Acosta chats to Graham Watts about how things are going after his first few months at the artistic helm of Birmingham Royal Ballet & the impact that Covid-19 has had on his plans...
★★★✰✰ The first concert was not much of a consolation for all that we have lost. So far, the Royal Ballet appears a token add-on to the opera's contributions...
★★★★✰ Cathy Marston has achieved much in bringing the life of Jacqueline du Pré to the ballet stage and perhaps one of the things that becomes even clearer with repeated viewings, is that the music and the dance are inextricably linked.
★★★★✰ Performances across the board are stupendous, reminding us that interpretations evolve and change, and do not disappoint.
★★★✰✰ This inventive dance theatre summarises Oscar Wilde’s one-act play, which relates the Biblical story of Salomé and her unrequited feelings for Jokanaan...
★★★★✰ The ballet works as a conflicted love story centred on the heroine, Tatiana. When Natalia Osipova dances the role, she brings home how Russian the character is.
★★★★✰ For those of us that have been involved with the company, no matter how small a part, it is clear that the ‘happy family’ that is English National Ballet, reveres and appreciates all who have been part of its 70 year existence.
★★★★✰ 'Spellbound' delivered in every regard – opulent grandeur, terrific people watching and above all, marvelous dance.
Lynette Halewood with some reflections on London dance performances over the last year - the good and the less good...
★★✰✰✰ There was certainly some spectacle and some good dancing, and not just from the big stars. However, the most heavily promoted piece and world premiere was an excruciating fifteen minutes of disappointment...
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart's Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
★★★✰✰ Our setting is the Verona Institute in the near future. Here disturbed young people have been locked up for an opaque purpose under the eye of a sadistic jailer... A traumatised Juliet meets a troubled Romeo, and it ends as badly as you might expect.
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...
★★★★✰ Juliet and Romeo is a clever work on many different levels.
★★★★✰ The Royal Ballet did themselves a lot of good with the last new bill of the season - a one-off celebration of Margot Fonteyn. There was much to be reminded of and be proud of.