★★★✰✰ With works from Christopher Wheeldon (Within the Golden Hour), Kyle Abraham (Optional Family: a divertissement - a premiere) and Crystal Pite (The Statement & Solo Echo)
Tag - Within the Golden Hour
A quad bill featuring a premiere by Kyle Abraham (as yet unnamed) along with works by Crystal Pite and Christopher Wheeldon.
★★★★✰ I had missed SFB’s London season at Sadler’s Wells in 2019, so was pleased to catch up with ballets brought together for this digital triple bill.
★★★★★ Thank you, Royal Ballet, for giving so much pleasure in trying times.
Note that we are not running pictures of all the pieces in this bill. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
★★★★✰ Kevin O'Hare, director of the Royal Ballet, came on stage to welcome the return of a paying audience for what turned out to be the opening and closing live performance of the season...
The entire Royal Ballet were back on stage and performing for a live audience last Friday in a gala style show which was/is also streamed. Jann Parry was mightily impressed with the dancing and repertoire (★★★★★) if not so much with the live audience experience in a Covid aware Opera House (★★★✰✰)
★★★★✰ The singers had the lions' share of the concert, with just two pas de deux by Royal Ballet couples, Matthew Ball and Mayara Magri, Reece Clarke and Fumi Kaneko.
★★★✰✰ Program A consisted of a string of solos and duets representing a slice of the company’s choreographic trajectory, from Frederick Ashton through Kenneth MacMillan to Liam Scarlett, Wayne McGregor, and Charlotte Edmonds.
★★★★✰ It’s been a treat to see so much new work made specifically for a company. The dancers are free, unburdened by the weight of history and expectation, with no comparisons to be made to famous past performers or interpretations. It’s all theirs.
★★★✰✰ A very mixed bill... Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui's Medusa (★★✰✰✰), Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour (★★★★✰) and Crystal Pite's Flight Pattern (★★★★✰)
Works by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, Christopher Wheeldon and Crystal Pite. Gallery by Foteini Christofilopoulou...
Jasper Conran is producing new designs for Christopher Wheeldon’s "Within the Golden Hour", to be premiered by the Royal Ballet on the 8 May 2019. Jann Parry talks to Conran about the designs and his earlier and extensive work for David Bintley at Birmingham Royal Ballet…
San Francisco Ballet – Trio, Ghost in the Machine (premiere), Within the Golden Hour – San Francisco
★★★✰✰ Myles Thatcher is an inventive young talent...
★★★★✰ The range of roles shows the Royal Ballet dancers, up-and-coming soloist, established principals and character artists, at their very best.
★★★✰✰ Wheeldon’s talents are on display, as well as the Royal Ballet’s dancers. A pity, then, that Strapless has been exposed without previews to sort out its weaknesses.
Gallery by Dave Morgan...
Great to see so many of San Francisco Ballet’s dancers enjoying themselves and enthusing their audience in a steamy summer evening in Paris.
Choreographer Christopher Wheeldon is currently at the San Francisco Ballet preparing for the American premiere of his Cinderella. He has a rehearsal in forty-five minutes so we quickly set off to discuss his latest full-length ballet and many other things...
From Foreign Lands: "This amusing, yet subtle send-up of classical ballet is rewarding in its expertly-shaped choreography, and made all the more appealing by the slight wackiness of the costumes and visual jokes."