classical ballet
Giselle, Mikhailovsky Ballet, London ColiseumWednesday, 27 March 2013
When the Bolshoi’s wunderkinder, Natalia Osipova and Ivan Vasiliev, suddenly left the company two years ago, the dance world played endless guessing-games as to where they would end up. It was like Claude Rains in Casablanca: round up the usual... Read more... |
The Royal Ballet, 2013-14 SeasonThursday, 14 March 2013
The Royal Ballet's 2013-14 season will open with Carlos Acosta's much-anticipated production of the virtuoso comic 19th-century ballet Don Quixote, the first of a traditional classical-looking year with modest openings for new work. Prime among... Read more... |
La Valse/ Monotones/ Marguerite & Armand, Royal BalletWednesday, 13 February 2013
Genius does not mean having no influences. Monotones, one of the very greatest of Frederick Ashton's ballets, is heavily influenced by other works: by George Balanchine’s Theme and Variations and Apollo, by Marius Petipa’s La Bayadère. And it in... Read more... |
Bolshoi summer season announced, with prodigals returnedWednesday, 23 January 2013
Despite the horror of the acid attack on their director Sergei Filin last week, the Bolshoi Ballet has confirmed its programme for its three-week Royal Opera House season from 29 July to 17 August. Filin's name remains at the head of the page as... Read more... |
Onegin, Royal BalletSunday, 20 January 2013
The worldwide success of John Cranko’s 1960s version of Tchaikovsky’s opera, in turn an adaptation of Pushkin’s verse-drama, might have taken even the choreographer by surprise. Tchaikovsky himself worried that “Pushkin’s exquisite texture will be... Read more... |
Black-Out Ballet: The Invisible Woman of British BalletTuesday, 11 December 2012
In 2006 an elderly dancer died in Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex. She was 88, and had once been one of Britain's most recognised ballerinas. Why did she die in obscurity? Why is the great ballet company that she ran now a forgotten name? This was what I set... Read more... |
Q&A Special: Choreographer & Ballet-Restorer Pierre LacotteSaturday, 10 November 2012
On 25 November cinemas all over Britain and overseas will host a live relay from the Bolshoi Ballet of a rampantly OTT and enormously entertaining ballet set in ancient Egypt, The Pharaoh's Daughter. It has mummies coming to life, English tourists... Read more... |
South Bank Show: The Male Dancer, Sky Arts 1Monday, 18 June 2012
Male dancers are a puzzle to British audiences, where they are an uncomplicated, taken-for-granted treasure in Latin or Slav countries. I point this out gratuitously, as it's a point that wasn't touched upon by Melvyn Bragg's film about three iconic... Read more... |
Ballet industry demands end to "too-thin" dancersTuesday, 24 April 2012Ballerina Tamara Rojo, director-designate of English National Ballet, is making waves even before she takes up her position in September. Next Monday she is a keynote speaker at a day of events at the Royal Society of Medicine launching the first-... Read more... |
Ballet industry demands end to "too-thin" dancersTuesday, 24 April 2012Ballerina Tamara Rojo, director-designate of English National Ballet, is making waves even before she takes up her position in September. Next Monday she is a keynote speaker at a day of events at the Royal Society of Medicine launching the first-... Read more... |
Birmingham Royal Ballet splits in halfThursday, 05 April 2012Reaching parts of the country that otherwise it couldn't reach, Birmingham Royal Ballet is to do a split tour of mixed ballets across the UK's theatres, one group travelling to south and west, the other going north and east.Now in its ninth year,... Read more... |
Opinion: What ballet school is forFriday, 30 March 2012
How many classical ballet dancing jobs, full-time, are there in Great Britain? I make it just 289. That's the Royal Ballet 94, English National Ballet 67, Birmingham Royal Ballet 57, Scottish Ballet 36, Northern Ballet 35. Rambert does sometimes... Read more... |
