Dance
Black & White, English National Ballet, London ColiseumThursday, 17 March 2011
At the 11th hour (as we all know from the current telly series), English National Ballet has pulled a gorgeous plum out of its back catalogue that throws open vistas of what a ballet company should be: Serge Lifar’s sumptuous Suite en Blanc. Why... Read more... |
Bolshoi leader quits in porn scandalWednesday, 16 March 2011
The Bolshoi Ballet's company manager, Gennady Yanin, has resigned after pornographic pictures appeared on the internet that were linked to him, just as he was being considered to take on the job of artistic director, which became vacant that day... Read more... |
CD: Pet Shop Boys - The Most Incredible ThingWednesday, 09 March 2011
Let's get the obvious out of the way: yes, this is incredible. Not just the sounds, nor the ambitious staging of Hans Christian Andersen's last story as a ballet, but the fact that, 30 years since they met, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe are still... Read more... |
Agony & Ecstasy: A Year With the English National Ballet, BBC FourWednesday, 09 March 2011
You thought Black Swan was a nightmare depiction of the ballet world? Now watch Agony & Ecstasy: A Year With English National Ballet, Part 1 and squirm. Compare Natalie Portman’s tormenting balletmaster with ENB’s Derek Deane, as each of them... Read more... |
Cleopatra, Northern Ballet, Leeds Grand TheatreSunday, 06 March 2011
Northern Ballet’s genes are rooted in the Royal Ballet’s narrative golden age of the Sixties, its most significant leader Christopher Gable having been the originally intended Romeo of Kenneth MacMillan’s iconic 1965 Romeo and Juliet. While the... Read more... |
The Centaur and the Animal, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 01 March 2011
To achieve a black stage that emits or reflects no light is a hell of an achievement. To place a huge black horse with black rider onto that stage, without the slightest noise, and to contrive a black shadow on the black, is to create an image found... Read more... |
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Royal BalletMonday, 28 February 2011
Some ballets are drugs in themselves - you’re under their sway no matter what the performance. Other ballets need drugs to help. This new Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is definitely of the second kind, a very odd, very shallow, very bright and... Read more... |
Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's Alice's Adventures in WonderlandMonday, 28 February 2011
Charlotte MacMillan took photographs of the first new full-length ballet at The Royal Ballet for 16 years, Christopher Wheeldon's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which premiered last night at the Royal Opera House. Designs are by Bob Crowley,... Read more... |
Now McCartney writes a ballet...Thursday, 24 February 2011Hot on the heels of the Pet Shop Boys’ foray into ballet for Sadler’s Wells next month, it’s revealed that Sir Paul McCartney has composed a ballet for New York City Ballet, a love story called Ocean’s Kingdom.Scheduled to premiere on 22 September,... Read more... |
I Don't Believe in Outer Space, The Forsythe Company, Sadler's WellsTuesday, 22 February 2011
An audience favourite has a USP that fills the house as long as they maintain the suspense - with William Forsythe, it’s the quality Diaghilev prized: unpredictability. When he set out in Germany in the 1980s he evolved an extreme classical ballet.... Read more... |
Ballet Flamenco Eva Yerbabuena, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 19 February 2011
There are gifted dancers and there are creatures of the stage. You know the difference immediately. The latter have something shamanic about them, ageless at any age, almost eccentric in their power. Eva Yerbabuena is one of those very rare... Read more... |
Bolshoi prima and violinist Repin have babyFriday, 18 February 2011
The Bolshoi Ballet’s prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova gave birth in Moscow yesterday to a baby girl, the child of the celebrated violinist Vadim Repin. Weighing 3.1 kilograms, the baby is named Anna.Zakharova, 31, a former star at the Mariinsky... Read more... |
