Both the Royal Ballet and Birmingham Royal Ballet are opening their 2021/22 seasons with the same ballet - Kenneth MacMillan's Romeo and Juliet. Jann Parry takes a look at how one of the most admired narrative ballets of the 20th century came to be and details of the many dancing debuts we can look forward to...
Tag - Rosie Kay
★★★✰✰ All up this is a most thoughtful and involving R&J for our time, one that with some dramatic honing will have a long life and which can speak powerfully to both new and old audiences. It's a dance of consequence, as ever, from Rosie Kay.
Rosie Kay’s new and radical take on "Romeo + Juliet" gets premiered on the 8 September at the Birmingham Hippodrome. Foteini Christofilopoulou with a heads-up & special shoot direct from the dance studio.
★★★★✰ It's been a long time since I've seen a piece of dance theatre quite so moving and thought-provoking as Adult Female Dancer.
★★★★✰ A bravo to Rosie Kay, who does it yet again, delivering thought provoking dance in a very smartly designed package. (but do read the programme!)
★★★★✰ "Ultimately both versions of "Soldiers" have the same impact of sending you home aware of the sacrifice involved and proud of what the military does."
A busy time for Morgann Runacre-Temple with work for Scottish Ballet's Digital Season, Stuttgart Ballet's Noverre Young Choreographers Evening, English National Ballet and also her recent Northern Ballet commission will be touring again. She stops to answer 5 questions...
★★★★✰ I look forward to the changes inevitably coming to BRB, but I can't believe any new director will turn their back on such repertoire gems as La fille mal gardee and their Peter Wright Nutcracker.
★★★✰✰ Rosie Kay’s MK Ultra is an ambitious project which tackles complex thematic sources - conspiracy theories, brain washing and mind-control, not to mention myths about secret societies such as the Illuminati...
★★★✰✰ As Woyzeck productions go this was rather different featuring just two professional actors, supported by a community company of over 80 who supplied the other named roles but for the most part super-colourful reality and dancing. For me, it's their show and the big reason to see the staging.
★★★✰✰ The good news is that Queen of Spades is a good-looking crowd pleaser and the RDB dancers look fantastic in it - I can't emphasise that enough. Also good that it's a step up from his last commission, Frankenstein - thank goodness, really.
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet...
★★★★✰ The physicality of 5 Soldiers during the hour-long performance brings home the breaking of bodies...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ Kay has produced a visually exciting and sexy work based on a theory that is all clearly nonsense.
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ Overall I came away impressed by an intelligent multimedia show that really makes you think about your views and how they have been influenced by what you see and hear...
Not heard of the Illuminati and the New World Order? Read on for a fascinating take on alternative news and brainwashing... and also a terrific record of just how a piece of dance gets created.
★★★★✰ Motel is a gem... An award-winning company in great creative form.
International Dance Festival Birmingham is back for a fifth time, running now (1 - 22 May 2016) and larger than ever we think. To find out more we did an email interview with David Massingham - Co-Artistic Director of IDFB...