★★★★★ Liam Scarlett has devised a visual and emotional treat for audiences, fully justifying Kevin O'Hare's faith in him as a director and choreographer.
Tag - Swan Lake
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
"I knew that I had to seize my only chance to have a ballet career. Masha Mukhamedov agreed to teach me privately six days a week for ten months..."
★★★✰✰ 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.
The occasion was the 15th anniversary of the Ekaterina Maximova Arabesque Ballet Competition named, since 2012, after the late and much-loved Bolshoi ballerina, and organised by her husband, Vladimir Vasiliev...
★★★✰✰ Snowblind is a great narrative ballet – the source material is striking and Marston’s interpretation of it, equally so.
★★★✰✰ This year's Russian Ballet gala was ostensibly in honour of the 200th anniversary of Marius Petipa's birth. Any choreography attributed to him was mostly a long way 'after Petipa', but it's always fun to see excellent Russian dancers deliver pas de deux from Don Quixote, Swan Lake and Le Corsaire.
February's masterclass, the fifth in the series, featured choreography from the start and end of Frederick Ashton's tenure as artistic director of the Royal Ballet, 1963-1969.
Congratulations to all from DanceTabs...
★★★★✰ This was indeed a Giselle to treasure as a first encounter with ballet.
★★★✰✰ Peter Wright's glorious ballet might not shine quite so magically in its Bintley/Albert Hall version but the dancers certainly do...
The Metropolitan Opera in New York staged "Le Rossignol" in December 1981 as part of a programme commemorating the hundredth anniversary of Stravinsky’s birth... the producer was John Dexter. He told Ashton, back in London, that he could choreograph two dancers as the Nightingale and the Fisherman on stage, while the roles would be sung by opera singers in the orchestra pit...
★★★✰✰ While the production is supremely stylish and the characters well-observed with expressive and romantic choreography, the narrative is padded out in order to fill the music, particularly where traditional elements of "Cinderella" have been excised.
★★★✰✰ This is Swan Lake in name only. There is no Tchaikovsky... there are no tutus... there is no-one called Odette, Odile, Siegfried or Rothbart, although there are several characters called McLoughlin...
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★✰✰ All up, I think this production demonstrated the strengths and weaknesses of "Raymonda" as a ballet. It certainly is a fabulous looking (and listening) calling card which might tour well...
★★✰✰✰ All the ingredients seemed promising but the evening was disappointing, struggling to recover from the tedium of the dire opening item...
The Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle is pleased to announce the nominations for the 18th National Dance Awards...
So how did a good Chilean boy end up dancing ballet in Europe...