dance
Robbins/MacMillan Triple Bill, Royal BalletSaturday, 30 May 2015
Last night at the Royal Ballet was, emphatically, laser-free. The combination of Afternoon of a Faun (1953) and In the Night (1970) by the great American choreographer Jerome Robbins, with a repeat of Kenneth MacMillan's 1965 Song of the Earth, performed earlier this season in a different triple bill, is your archetypical safe bet, presumably calculated to soothe any ruffles that might have been caused by Wayne McGregor's ambitious Virginia Woolf opus. Read more... |
Sylvie Guillem, Life in Progress, Sadler's WellsThursday, 28 May 2015
Sylvie Guillem is retiring in exactly the same way as she does everything: in her own time and on her own terms. She turns 50 this year, but it’s not that age is finally catching up with her – at least, not in her body, which she acknowledges has potentially many more years of dancing in it. Read more... |
Dark Arteries, Rambert, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 13 May 2015
After the disappointment of Wayne McGregor’s latest piece for the Royal Ballet, which opened on Monday, I thought last night’s trip to Sadler’s Wells for a new Rambert programme might cheer me up about the state of contemporary dance and composition. Read more... |
Woolf Works, Wayne McGregor, Royal BalletTuesday, 12 May 2015
On my way to the Woolf Works opening last night, I made the mistake of reading The Waves, Virginia Woolf’s most experimental novel. Read more... |
Ahnen, Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 25 April 2015
You’re already in the land of the unpredictable with Pina Bausch. Creating unease was her métier. But when she pulls a gag intended to convince you that something has gone badly wrong on stage, and then it really does, the discombobulation is profound. Read more... |
BBC Young Dancer 2015, BBC FourSaturday, 18 April 2015
Lest the BBC Four imprint prove not strong enough a signal, I'll say it loud and clear: don't go into this expecting Strictly, kids. On the evidence of last night's contemporary dance showdown, the first of four section finals, the brand new BBC Young Dancer competition is light years from the razzmatazz, sparkling scoreboards and celebrity judge infighting of the BBC One dance flagship. Read more... |
La Fille mal gardée, Royal BalletSaturday, 18 April 2015
In 1803 they called it Filly me Gardy. Today British ballet lovers refer to it by a single coded syllable: “Fee”. But translating its title is, for audiences at least, the only hard thing about this three-act romcom by Frederick Ashton. The rest is pure pleasure, and pure Englishness, in what must be the happiest work in the repertoire. Read more... |
Auf dem Gebirge hat man ein Geschrei gehört, Tanztheater Wuppertal, Sadler's WellsThursday, 16 April 2015
Retrospectives are difficult in dance, and for Pina Bausch's brand of Tanztheater, even more difficult. A great deal of her oeuvre's impact derives from the special atmosphere of her Wuppertal company, whose dancers were devoted to her and to each other, in many cases staying for their whole careers. Read more... |
Diana Vishneva, On the Edge, London ColiseumWednesday, 15 April 2015
Diana Vishneva's last solo show was called Beauty in Motion, a pretty safe bet under the Trade Descriptions Act, since the Mariinsky prima ballerina and ABT guest star is unfailingly, remarkably beautiful. The new one, which came to the Coliseum last night 18 months after its première in California, rejoices in the much more ambiguous title of On the Edge. On the edge of what? Nervous breakdown? Retirement? Being less than beautiful? Read more... |
A Streetcar Named Desire, Scottish Ballet, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 01 April 2015
Your mum told you (or at least, I hope someone did) that it wasn't about being pretty, it was about having personality. True wisdom though this is, you probably also noticed that there are some jobs where it appears to be necessary to conform to a certain model of style or appearance. Playing the princess roles in ballet is one of these, though it's not about prettiness: for practical reasons you have to be shorter and considerably lighter than the men who will partner you. Read more... |
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