Dance
Swan Lake, St Petersburg Ballet Theatre, London ColiseumFriday, 14 August 2015
St Petersburg Ballet Theatre is a phenomenon of the new Russia: not anchored in centuries of history or state patronage like its neighbours the Mariinsky and the Mikhailovsky, but founded as a commercial venture in 1994 by Konstantin Tachkin, a... Read more... |
Bolshoi Ballet acid attack leader loses his jobFriday, 31 July 2015
Sergei Filin, the Bolshoi Ballet artistic director whose sight was maimed two years ago by an acid attack organized by a disgruntled dancer, will lose his job when his contract expires next spring. Bolshoi Theatre chief Vladimir Urin announced... Read more... |
Matthew Bourne's The Car Man, Sadler's WellsMonday, 20 July 2015
The original idea for the subtitle of this show, first made in 2000 and last seen at Sadler's Wells in 2007, was apparently "An Auto-Erotic Thriller". Yes, groan. But "erotic thriller" is a much straighter description of The Car Man than its actual... Read more... |
Cinderella, Wheeldon, London ColiseumThursday, 09 July 2015
Christopher Wheeldon is the purveyor of pretty. You can perfectly well see why San Francisco Ballet, who commissioned a new full-length work from Wheeldon in 2012, got cold feet at the prospect of tackling the difficult, Britten-scored Prince of the... Read more... |
Flamencura, Paco Peña Company, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 24 June 2015
No, don't check your calendar – it's definitely not March. I associate flamenco at Sadler's Wells so strongly with their annual two-week festival in early spring that watching Paco Peña Company at the Wells last night felt a bit like a cheeky... Read more... |
Alston at Home, The PlaceThursday, 11 June 2015
Parties in someone's back garden are often more fun than those in big fancy venues. Richard Alston Dance Company celebrated its 20th birthday with a big soirée at Sadler's Wells in January, but last night was their cheerful family gathering, held in... Read more... |
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,... 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... 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. It was a mistake because even the briefest immersion in Woolf’s prose was a thousand times more exhilarating than the... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Composer Gavin HigginsMonday, 11 May 2015
Composer Gavin Higgins and choreographer Mark Baldwin’s Dark Arteries is billed by Rambert as “the world’s first brass band dance work” and has its premiere this week at Sadler’s Wells. Higgins was born into a family of brass players in the Forest... Read more... |
Maya Plisetskaya, 1925-2015Wednesday, 06 May 2015
The great Russian ballerina Maya Plisetskaya, renowned for her deathless Dying Swan and a performing career that lasted more than 60 years, died suddenly of a heart attack at home in Munich at the weekend, aged 89.To the West she epitomised the... Read more... |
