English National Ballet – Song of the Earth – streamed archive recording of 2017 performance
★★★★✰ The recording reveals how unusual the choreography is, as it was in 1965… Dancers in pointe shoes have to adapt to flexed feet, flat-footed parallel positions, torsos bent forward, elbows and wrists held at angles.
Royal Opera House/Royal Ballet – Live from Covent Garden: Second Concert (20 June)
★★★★★ Though the concert was a treat, could the Royal Opera House please try raising our spirits in future streamings, and give the Royal Ballet the prominence it deserves.
Vadim Muntagirov on life under lockdown and dancing at the ROH again, to be seen this Saturday
The Royal Ballet’s Vadim Muntagirov talks about making the most of lockdown and getting ready to dance again for the Royal Opera House’s Live from Covent Garden transmission on Saturday night (20 June 2020), where he is dancing Ashton’s seldom-seen “Dance of the Blessed Spirits”…
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer 2018 Competition – 5 Questions to 6 Finalists
English National Ballet’s Emerging Dancer Competition is unique in British ballet in throwing the spotlight on more junior dancers or “tomorrow’s stars” as ENB put it. This year’s competition is on the 11 June and ahead of the that we talk to the finalists – Precious Adams, Fernando Carratalá Coloma, Giorgio Garrett, Daniel McCormick, Francesca Velicu and Connie Vowles…
English National Ballet – Song of the Earth, La Sylphide – London
★★★★✰ The pairing cannily indulges our need for vivid material on these bleak mid-winter nights while also steering us down from the high of the Christmas circuit, with its sugary Nutcrackers and other family-friendly fare.
Memorable Performances of 2017 – London
Head and shoulders above other new work this year was Crystal Pite’s Flight Pattern for the Royal Ballet…
English National Ballet – Song of the Earth, La Sylphide – Manchester
★★★★✰ The ENB production of La Sylphide has been staged by three luminaries of Danish ballet, Frank Andersen, Eva Kloborg and Anne Marie Vessel Schlüter, and is, therefore, one supposes, as authentic to the August Bournonville ideals, as possible…
2015 National Dance Awards – Announcement of Nominations
The Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle is pleased to announce the nominations for the 16th National Dance Awards,
Royal Ballet – Raven Girl, Connectome – London
In this revival of Wayne McGregor’s Raven Girl, Watson becomes something more than a postman…
National Ballet of China – Peony Pavilion, Red Detachment of Women – New York
The National Ballet of China dancers are beautifully trained, surprisingly tall, willowy – even the men – and delicately featured.
The Royal Ballet – Infra, Divertissements, The Age of Anxiety, The Dream, Song of the Earth – New York
These are dancers worth following in a wide repertory of works; it’s a shame to see them go while feeling we’ve barely gotten to know them better.
The Royal Ballet – The Dream, Song of the Earth – New York
After an absence of eleven years, the Royal Ballet has finally returned to New York; they’re currently presenting two programs at the Koch Theatre,..
Royal Ballet – Afternoon of a Faun, In the Night, Song of the Earth – London
The final triple bill of the Royal Ballet’s season reverts to its founder’s faith in classical ballet as an expressive language.
Gallery – Royal Ballet in Afternoon of a Faun, In the Night, Song of the Earth
Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Royal Ballet – Four Temperaments, Untouchable (Shechter premiere), Song of the Earth – London
It’s a truism that any startlingly new dance-maker without an early elite training will have based his (or her) choreography on their own physique…
Gallery – Royal Ballet in The Four Temperaments, Untouchable, Song of the Earth
Gallery by Dave Morgan…
Royal Ballet – Ceremony of Innocence, The Age of Anxiety, Aeternum – London
The programme was so underwhelming that I went twice in succession, to see whether alternative casts could make a difference.
Mikhailovsky Ballet – Multiplicity. Forms of Silence and Emptiness – London, Coliseum
His choreography is busy, occasionally predictable, but more often inventive, strong on musicality and both remarkably fluid and emotionally charged; stretching the dancers both literally and in terms of their artistic diversity.
Monica Mason: A Life With The Royal Ballet Exhibition
The exhibition ‘Monica Mason: A Life With The Royal Ballet‘ opened in February, but only last week did I see it properly – at a private view, which also happily involved some speeches…
