The 13th Dance Open Festival invited two European and very differently styled neo-classical-cum-modern companies – Malandain Ballet Biarritz and Dutch National Ballet - to perform as part of their celebrations in St. Petersburg.
Tag - Swan Lake
Almost 20 years since it first premiered, Matthew Bourne's sharp, satirical and exquisitely beautiful Swan Lake feels as up to the minute as if it were choreographed last week.
All up it's an entertaining and chic-looking take on Swan Lake, and one where you don't have to know the original to enjoy it. But I'm glad I have seen a pukka Swan Lake or three...
Gallery by Sunkyung Reina Jang...
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
In many ways, Jewels is Balanchine’s choreographic résumé – a retrospective and a vivid showcase of his aesthetics and creative genius...
Casting Released for Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Apollo, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Firebird, Marguerite and Armand, DSCH, Cinderella (and remember all casting can change...)
The Perm Ballet has become a regular fixture in France over the past six years... the company embarks every winter on a countrywide tour akin to a Ballets Russes expedition. This year, they visited 19 different venues...
A shame – not long for either him or the company to know one another. Three years is not the normal tenure for being artistic director of a company – 5 would be normal and successful ones stay 10 years or more. It’s interesting that one reason for leaving is the difficulty of exploring “other professional projects”. I find that rather surprising – being a...
The formula for the success of the Mariinsky’s Swan Lake is simple. The love story between a beautiful young woman turned into a swan and a prince is told in a direct, traditional manner. There is no symbolism or hidden meaning here, no exaggeration or melodrama.
At Monday’s National Dance Awards two de Valois awards were given for outstanding achievement in dance. Here are Graham Watts citations for Leanne Benjamin and Matthew Bourne, as given on the day.
...Hallberg’s entrance drew gasps and shouts of ‘bravo’ from the audience. His magnificently stretched jetés soared through the air...
Novels are treacherous terrain for choreographers. So much of what draws us into a book and imprints itself in our imagination ...is almost impossible to convey in the language of the body.
I’m not ashamed to admit to a tear in my eye at the final curtain...
If you think about it, Nutcracker lends itself quite naturally to an erotic treatment. Coming of age story, voyage of discovery, fantasy playground filled with tantalizing delights
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
As its whistle-stop tour drew to its final week, the Russian State Ballet settled down for three consecutive days at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.
This was an evening not to be missed. Newly appointed Artistic Director, José Manuel Carreño, made sure that the quality of the eighteen guest artists for Ballet San Jose’s Gala Performance would tantalise even the most skeptical dance fan.
As for the whole ballet, it’s a 19th century expression of the racist Orientalist view that says India is a land of groveling slaves and despotic rajahs, unbridled lust and pervasive corruption, abundant opium and yielding odalisques. ...Once past all that, however, it’s a lavish and thrilling spectacle with abundant pleasures for eye and ear.
For all Bourne’s imagination, his version makes even less sense than the original.