ballet
Birmingham Royal Ballet, Cyrano, Sadler's WellsFriday, 13 November 2009
Lush, romantic storyballets are as scarce as hens' teeth these days, despite the longing of much of the ballet audience to see them. Not because they're too elementary for today's dancemakers, I'd guess, but because to make one with lively dancing... Read more... |
Psychoanalysing BalletSaturday, 31 October 2009
As a new biography of the Royal Ballet's great choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan by Jann Parry reveals, MacMillan's ballets are often about characters in shadowy explorations of inner states of mind. In part, his willingness to portray loneliness... Read more... |
Morphoses prog B, Sadler's WellsSaturday, 24 October 2009
In the Ballets Russes centenary year it’s worth remembering that the iconic Diaghilev ballets were only the few lasting landmarks in a sea of constant novelties and shipwrecks. So if Christopher Wheeldon doesn’t take many great reviews back to the... Read more... |
Morphoses, Sadler's WellsWednesday, 21 October 2009
Britain’s favourite ballet choreographer Chris Wheeldon rode into his homeland last night, bringing with his Anglo-American company Morphoses work by himself and by Britain’s second favourite ballet choreographer Alexei Ratmansky. Two favourites... Read more... |
Mayerling, Royal BalletWednesday, 07 October 2009
Last night was Sun night at the Royal Opera House, when the opening night of the ballet season was supposedly entirely attended by winners of The Sun’s ballet-ballot. Sadly the production, Mayerling, came into the ballot too late to get the full Sun... Read more... |
Scottish Ballet, Rubies/ Workwithinwork/ In Light and Shadow, Sadler's WellsThursday, 01 October 2009
Rubies is a ballet for a girl comfortable with her curves, who can slink her hips and tip her bottom and relish seeing the men’s eyes widen. That the said girl is a ballerina, for whom curves are usually anathema, shows the personality challenge... Read more... |
Production Gallery: The Royal Ballet's MayerlingTuesday, 29 September 2009
Charlotte MacMillan photographed the Royal Ballet's Mayerling, with choreography by Kenneth MacMillan, music by Franz Liszt, and designs by Nicholas Georgiadis, which opens at the Royal Opera House on Wednesday. The cast is headed by Edward Watson... Read more... |
Ballet Meets ScienceThursday, 24 September 2009
Two ballets are premiered this month with big scientific subjects and new commissioned scores. Birmingham Royal Ballet's David Bintley was inspired by Einstein's principle of relativity, with a Matthew Hindson score, while Mark Baldwin at Rambert... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Tamara Rojo's DiarySunday, 13 September 2009
The Royal Ballet's leading ballerina Tamara Rojo was holding a large and not old but already battered diary when we met, pages and dried flowers falling out of it, along with notes and photographs. It’s barely a book, more a pile of loose... Read more... |
Sylvie Guillem, Ballerina in EvolutionWednesday, 09 September 2009
The phenomenal French ballerina Sylvie Guillem (b. 1965) has always been a modern woman, for all her classical ballerina dress. She joined the Royal Ballet in 1989 from Nureyev's Paris Opera Ballet, on terms of strictest independence, hardly saying... Read more... |
No Intermissions: The Life of Agnes de MilleTuesday, 08 September 2009
In dance heaven, poor Agnes de Mille is resigned to being jostled by nobler colleagues. "Sprightly but peripheral" was her own assessment of her work, yet, with her 1942 ballet Rodeo and her musicals Oklahoma!, Carousel, Brigadoon and more, she... Read more... |
Alina Somova: dancer or circus pony?Monday, 03 August 2009
It is a curious feeling to go to meet a hated figure and find a delicate, blonde girl with a sweet face.On Monday, 23-year-old ballerina Alina Somova opens the batting for the legendary Mariinsky Ballet’s Covent Garden tour in Romeo and Juliet,... Read more... |
