Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
Tag - The Firebird
★★★★✰ Three short but densely packed ballets infused with a strong Russian flavour were at the heart of the Royal Ballet’s last bill of the season.
This programme celebrated Annette Page's career with the Royal Ballet and supported the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She died at the age of 84 of MND, a cruel disease for a former dancer and an articulate, witty woman...
★★★★★ "I cannot recall being so moved at a dance performance for a very long time, if ever."
★★★✰✰ 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 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...
★★★★✰ The long gala (three and a half hours with one interval) was well organised, with no speeches and no protracted curtain calls.
★★✰✰✰ What’s going on in the head office at the Mariinsky Ballet?
David Drew, for 56 years a member of The Royal Ballet, has died after a long battle with illness. He described himself as one of a ‘bridge generation’ of dancers. The longevity of his career meant that he worked with many figures from the Ballets Russees – but also taught many dancers and choreographers working today.
While other Cherkaoui collaborations have generally crossed boundaries to link contemporary movement with the borrowed style, in Genesis there appears to be a multiplicity of influences.
Lynette Halewood with her personal selection of London dance memories this last year…
The best of the videos and best piece of the night was Kim Brandstrup's Leda and the Swan using the much-loved Zenaida Yanowsky and Tommy Franzen
"This is how ecstasy is danced." Kimin Kim in Concerto DSCH.
Born in Paris in 1958, Isabelle Fokine is the daughter of Vitale Fokine and granddaughter of choreographer Mikhail Fokine. She is artistic director of the Fokine Estate Archive, which holds the worldwide copyright to his work.
...it’s very Russian in its mixture of comedy, satire and luscious spectacle – and first-class performances.
The corps (in Chopiniana) must be congratulated for the ball-bearing precision in their soft gentle boureeing, gliding gently back to their original positions as the music ended. A real treat to see it done so beautifully.
Graham Watts met up with the choreographer on a recent visit to St Petersburg to discuss his career and to ask what London audiences might expect from Rodin...
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...)
18 pictures by Dave Morgan...
An apologetic Liepa promised to return for a week next time and bring the new Cleopatra with him, but this was an unsatisfying evening in its current form.