dance

American Ballet Theatre, Prog 2, Sadler’s Wells

Judith Flanders Wednesday, 02 February 2011

Jardin aux Lilas is one of ABT’s great calling cards, and it was danced with great seriousness of purpose and devotion by an admirably schooled cast.

American Ballet Theatre, Prog 1, Sadler's Wells

Ismene Brown Tuesday, 01 February 2011

Was it the worst-played and worst-danced performance of Duo Concertant I’ve ever seen? I can’t remember a direr in my experience of quite a few DCs. But then the opening night of American Ballet Theatre’s London tour was a set of fine promises falling flat with a thud. A delicate new sextet ruined by the piano player. A masterpiece of musical ballet murdered by the violinist, the pianist and the ballerina. A cod-ballet duet by Twyla Tharp deflated by an unhumorous leading...

Du Goudron et Des Plumes, Barbican/ Flogging a Dead Horse, Roundhouse Studio

Ismene Brown Friday, 28 January 2011

Five people stand in the dark. A bleak gantry descends with a rumble onto their heads. They scuttle under it and flatten themselves to escape a crushing, but then they get up and start building. The platform is stripped of planks, rebuilt at crazy angles, refashioned while decorating the tasks with acrobatic surprises.

Les Antliaclastes, Institute of Contemporary Arts/ A Guide to Puppetry

Ismene Brown Monday, 24 January 2011

The puppets appearing in LIMF this year are by no means all child-friendly - after the mild kiddy-horror of Teatro Corsario and their hand-manipulated Bunraku creatures, the return of the much more disturbing imagination of Patrick Sims, founder and governing mad scientist of Buchinger’s Boot Marionettes, was my most-looked-for event.

Swan Lake, Royal Ballet

Ismene Brown Sunday, 23 January 2011

The return of the Royal Ballet’s Swan Lake production coincides with the tumult over the film Black Swan, about which the company’s marketing department must be pretty pleased, even if some of the dancers aren’t. The chief surprise for any newcomers drawn to the ballet by the film, obsessing as it does about the leading ballerina, must be how long it takes to meet the Swan Queen at all.

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LIMF: La Maldición De Poe, Purcell Room/ Flesh and Blood & Fish and Fowl, Barbican Pit

Ismene Brown Thursday, 20 January 2011

The up - which I’m sorry not to have reported on before it ended last night - was the Spanish puppetry troupe Teatro Corsario, who made their hour’s strut and fret upon the stage in the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room a pleasingly diverting wee horror tale, La Maldición de Poe (The Curse of Poe), filled with gory corpses and spectral lighting and awful bloodthirsty characters.

Giselle, Royal Ballet/ Swan Lake, Russian State Ballet of Siberia

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 12 January 2011

The chasm between the top-class ballet available to London-area ballet-goers and the low-grade stuff peddled in the regions is the field where the battle to save ballet’s soul is nightly won or lost.

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Romeo and Juliet, English National Ballet, London Coliseum

David Nice Sunday, 09 January 2011

Yat-Sen Chang demonstrating Mercutio's high-flying cheekiness at the Capulet Ball

Busy, busy, busy tends to have been the watchword of Rudolf Nureyev’s elaborate choreographies. Prokofiev, as the most direct of musical dramatists, demanded streamlining from Sergey Radlov’s complicated scenario in 1935, but Nureyev tends to have jammed extra plotlines back in with un-Shakespearean knobs on. Thank heavens Patricia Ruanne, his Juliet for the initial four-week run back in 1977, and his first Tybalt, Frédéric Jahn, have returned to work so hard on the staging's fiddly bits as...

Year Out/Year In: Dance is Still With Us (So Far)

Ismene Brown Wednesday, 29 December 2010

I was taken to task by a commenter this year who told me I should go and review music, if I couldn't enjoy dance. Hm. One takes such things to heart, but it's humbug. While piling up memories over 25 years might mean that the noise in my memory is getting more and more obtrusive, that doesn't mean you can't suddenly find the corker one night that wipes the field clean and places a new memory there which will move your yardstick yet again.

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Strictly Come Dancing: The Final, BBC One

alexandra Coghlan Sunday, 19 December 2010

It’s been a journey, an emotional rollercoaster, since 14 soap stars and sports personalities abandoned reality three months ago, donned a series of spandex and chiffon outfits and embarked upon the most important experience of their lives. They all gave it 110 per cent, took disappointment on the chin and came back fighting, and last night the three finalists battled it out for the ultimate prize – the Strictly Come Dancing 2010 glitterball trophy.