Dance
theartsdesk's Christmas Presents GuideMonday, 13 December 2010
With the lightning speed of online delivery, there is still masses of time to select the best and most enjoyable presents for Christmas, thanks to the taste and wisdom of theartsdesk's pack of writers. With battered guitars, Belgian cartoons, Pacino... Read more... |
Photo Gallery: Ballet in FocusMonday, 13 December 2010
A display of rarely seen photographs of key ballet dancers from the start of the 20th century goes on display at the National Portrait Gallery. The gallery holds the largest surviving archive of the once-fashionable Bassano Studio, London, including... Read more... |
The Nutcracker, English National Ballet, London ColiseumSunday, 12 December 2010
The lighting chief holds the success of a magical fairy-tale staging in his hands. Whatever the designer has done, however fantastical and virtuosic his visions, the lighting chief can ruin it. So it is with English National Ballet’s new Nutcracker... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's Cinderella, Sadler's WellsFriday, 10 December 2010
What a stunning show Matthew Bourne has created in his Blitz-era Cinderella - truly a magical ride created from what was in its original 1997 form a pumpkin waiting to be transformed. This must be the most heartwarming and sophisticatedly rewarding... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Siberia: Cold Comfort KrasnoyarskSunday, 28 November 2010
In England you may joke about having Siberian weather with minus 7 degrees. This is really what Siberian winter looks like - at minus 26 degrees. The river is gushing steam, a hellishly peculiar sight. After travelling for 16 hours and through seven... Read more... |
Cinderella, Birmingham Royal BalletThursday, 25 November 2010
Fairy-tale ballets are a bitch. We all grow a mental image of what is “right” when we are about five, and then woe betide anyone whose vision is different – because of course it isn’t different, it’s “wrong”. So David Bintley and his designer,... Read more... |
Design Secrets of Cinderella and The NutcrackerMonday, 22 November 2010
The designer of a fairytale ballet is far, far more important than the choreographer. It's those visions that lodge themselves in children's heads, in adults' memories, embedded with the music. And at no time more potently than Christmas when it's... Read more... |
Apollo's Angels: A History of BalletSunday, 21 November 2010
It is rare that you read a book, and mentally shout “Yes! Yes!” as you tick off all the things you agree with, but had never actually verbalised. It is even rarer to read a book where, in a subject you know pretty well, on almost every page you... Read more... |
Cinderella, Royal BalletSunday, 21 November 2010
Christmas rolls around, and so does Cinderella, a welcome alternative to the seasonal dance-critic bah-humbug that is The Nutcracker. First, the good news. The good news is Marianela Nuñez. Always a lovely dancer, in Ashton she just glows. No one... Read more... |
FAR, Random Dance, Sadler's WellsThursday, 18 November 2010
If only such a bubble of foolish hype did not follow Wayne McGregor wherever he goes, such bloated talk of reinventing dance, injecting it with brains, and infusing it with new chemical sensitivities and practically supernatural powers, one... Read more... |
Hush/ Awakenings/ Cardoon Club, Rambert Dance, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 10 November 2010
“Nice is different from good,” sings one of Stephen Sondheim’s characters. And mostly, it is different, “nice” rarely being “good”. Christopher Bruce, however, blows that theory right out of the water, because Hush, his 2006 piece which opens... Read more... |
Sadler's Wells, 2010-11 SeasonTuesday, 09 November 2010
The spring 2011 season at Sadler’s Wells opens booking on 15 November. Featured attractions include horses and mass nudity on stage, the Pet Shop Boys' first ballet, William Forsythe, New York's American Ballet Theatre, the usual hip hop, flamenco... Read more... |
