Great expectations
Last week, the feast of long-awaited dance events on offer echoed bygone days when London life was dominated by the…
Simple pleasures
According to some textbooks, one thing the fathers of Soviet choreography hastened to remove from ballet was that awkward-looking language…
Boringly beautiful
Aesthetically speaking, last week’s performance by the Nederlands Dans Theater 1 was one by the slickest of the season. Fashionably…
No laughing matter
Swans, swans, more swans. If the lifespan of a dance critic were calculated by the number of performances of Swan…
Thinking games
Forget the pedantic classifications of genres, styles and schools. When it comes to dance performances, it all boils down to…
Balanchinian ideal
George Balanchine’s Serenade, the manifesto of 20th-century neoclassical choreography, requires a deep understanding of both its complex stylistic nuances and…
Study in spectacle
In a dance world that has chosen to dispense with stylistic and semantic subtleties, ‘narrative ballet’ and ‘story ballet’ are…
Visual overload
What’s in a definition? As far as theatre dance is concerned, quite a lot. Labelling — and often labelling for…
Man power
Louis XIV might have been a narcissistic and whimsical tyrant, but he did a lot for dance. An accomplished practitioner,…
The third way
It all started in 1971, when a group of physically and artistically talented youngsters decided to create a dance company…
Inspired by Bach
It appears that J.S. Bach’s music is to theatre-dance what whipped cream is to chocolate. Masterworks such as Trisha Brown’s…
Cranko’s legacy
Stuttgart Ballet’s rapid ascent to fame is at the core of one of the most interesting chapters of ballet history.…
Seasonal treats
There was a time when the term ‘world première’ was not as fashionable as it is these days. Great works…
Light and shade
Sun is one of those performances that confront reviewers with the eternal dilemma of whether or not it is appropriate…
Entertaining romp
Bold decisions are at the core of great artistic directorship. And Tamara Rojo, the ballet star leading English National Ballet,…
Don Q lite
Superstar Carlos Acosta makes little or no reference to Don Quixote’s established history in his programme note about the genesis…
A trio of gems
Jewels is everything a George Balanchine admirer could ask for. The sumptuous triptych, set to scores by Fauré, Stravinsky and…
Hooked on classics
Tradition is often frowned on. Yet, if properly handled, it can be sheer fun and pure bliss, as demonstrated by…
Boston’s artistry
Those who lament sluggishness in contemporary stagings of Balanchine’s ballets — and those who are responsible for it — should…
Self styled
As someone who once raved about William Forsythe’s innovative approach to ballet and fondly admired his groundbreaking choreographic explorations, I…
Losing the plot
Last Friday, ballet’s overcrowded aviary welcomed a new addition: Raven Girl. Sexy, sleek, troubled and troublesome, she is the creation…
The end of innocence
As far as memory serves, in my 46 years of being both in and at the ballet I have encountered…
Mixed blessings
Last week, Sergei Polunin’s powerful entrance in Marguerite and Armand was saluted with a wave of electrically charged silence: not…
From Russia with love
If you want to know what’s so great about John Cranko’s choreography, look at the opening phrase of the final…
Bourne again
While most theatres brace themselves for the annual invasion of prancing Nutcrackers and flying snowmen, Sadler’s Wells offers something that…
