Merce Cunningham Trust – Night of 100 Solos, Centennial Event – London
★★★★✰ A quote from The Observer’s dance critic, Nigel Gosling, in 1964: ‘Merce Cunningham and his company have burst on the British scene like a bomb …heart-warming proof that here is an art with a future…’
International Draft Works 2019 – Royal Opera House, London
★★★★✰ All ten pieces on show were strong, considered commissions, and more than half came from female choreographers – a heartening boost for this male-saturated field.
Ivan Putrov – Against the Stream – London
★★★★✰ Putov brought together remarkable performers whom we long to see again, and left us wanting more…
Gallery – International Draft Works 2019 – Royal Opera House, London
Featuring emerging choreographers working with the National Ballet of Canada, Royal Ballet of Flanders, Dutch National Ballet, ABT Studio Company, Hamburg Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Norwegian National Ballet and The Royal Ballet. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
English National Ballet – She Persisted: Broken Wings, Nora, Le Sacre du printemps – London
★★★★✰ Grouping this diverse triple bill under the title She Persisted works in so many ways…
Russian Ballet Icons Gala 2019 – London
★★★✰✰ The annual Ballet Icons gala, now in its 14th year, aims to promote Russian culture while providing a Sunday evening’s entertainment for Russians in London and ballet-lovers…
Scottish Ballet – Dextera, Elite Syncopations – Inverness
★★★★✰ It’s the company’s 50th Anniversary season and rather than start it, as you might expect, in Glasgow or Edinburgh, they opened in Scotland’s most northerly city, Inverness, with a special premiere and a full-on party for all.
Natalia Osipova – Pure Dance bill – New York
★★★✰✰ So, is Pure Dance a success? It depends on what you’re looking for. Osipova is as exciting, and as powerful, a dancer as ever. Among the commissions, only Valse Triste and Flutter are worthy of further exploration…
Ivan Putrov on his latest night of ballet – Against the Stream
Ivan Putrov’s latest project, Against the Stream, gets its premiere on Sunday 7 April 2019 at the London Coliseum. Jann Parry finds out all about it…
San Francisco Ballet – Die Toteninsel (premiere), Rodeo: Four Dance Episodes, Björk Ballet – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Liam Scarlett has great taste in dancers. For the 29 March world premiere of Die Toteninsel, his fourth commission for San Francisco Ballet, the British choreographer chose the lyrical and athletic principal Joseph Walsh and soloist Lauren Strongin…
Royal Ballet – Romeo and Juliet – London
★★★✰✰ Somehow, still at the start of the run, the production seems sanitised, nicely ‘English’ in spite of Nicholas Georgiadis’s imposing Italian Renaissance sets and costumes. Different casts yet to come might bring fresh discoveries…
San Francisco Ballet – The Sleeping Beauty – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ The performance was thrilling …because it marked the Aurora debut of soloist Wona Park, whose Kitri debut in the season-opening Don Quixote got loads of buzz. At just 19, she dances with an ease beyond her years…
Annette Page: Tribute to a Ballerina
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…
Sarasota Ballet – Apparitions, Stars and Stripes – Sarasota
★★★★✰ As if an Ashton rarity weren’t reason enough to catch this program, there was also the presence of Marcelo Gomes, former much-admired principal dancer from American Ballet Theatre, to recommend it.
Royal Ballet – Frankenstein – London
★★✰✰✰ Could Liam Scarlett’s monstrous Frankenstein be fixed with more, better surgery? Evidently not, in this revival, three years after its creation.
Royal Ballet – Don Quixote – London
★★★★★ With Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov… Theirs was a performance that caught up everyone in the sheer pleasure and excitement of spectacular dancing.
Royal Ballet School & Royal Ballet – The Cunning Little Vixen, The Two Pigeons – London
★★★★✰ – Royal Ballet School in Liam Scarlett’s new Cunning Little Vixen. ★★✰✰✰ – Royal Ballet’s Yasmine Naghdi debut in Two Pigeons.
Gallery – Royal Ballet’s Marianela Nuñez & Vadim Muntagirov in Don Quixote
Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou…
Scottish Ballet – Cinderella – Glasgow
★★★★✰ This is my second review of Scottish Ballet’s Cinderella this winter. Why? Well, it’s a production I like and I wanted to see more dancers in it, silly!
