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 (★★★✰✰)
Tag - Scott Joplin
★★★★✰ Starwise, Bejart's Wayfarer bumps this program from two stars to four.
Scottish Ballet have just announced plans for their Fiftieth Anniversary in 2019, including three world premieres - we have the full press release and touch-base with CEO/Artistic Director Christopher Hampson about the celebrations and what happens beyond...
★★★★✰ The ostensible link between the three works in this mixed bill is that they are by the Royal Ballet's resident choreographers, past and present: Frederick Ashton. Kenneth MacMillan and Wayne McGregor. But none is typical of the choreographers' work...
★★✰✰✰ It all sounds terribly promising, and yet the evening falls as flat as a soufflé left in the oven for too long.
Heginbotham has a knack for choosing just the right music for his dances, none of it hackneyed or used solely for its atmospheric qualities: no Arvo Pärt, no Philip Glass...
An imaginatively contrasting double-bill, it pulled in audiences and left them buzzing.
Alston’s response to music is scrupulous, but Kondo’s percussive clatters, not dissimilar to John Cage’s prepared-piano poundings, takes some getting used to – for audiences, as for dancers.