Merce Cunningham’s work was magical, intangible, Einsteinian – revival is futile
On Tuesday, thousands of miles apart, in three great cities, London, New York and Los Angeles, 75 dancers will dance…
Seeing the light
Dance is an ephemeral art. It keeps few proper records of its products. Reputations are written in rumours and reviews.…
Northern Ballet has triumphed with Brontë: Jane Eyre reviewed
The difference between a poor ballet of the book (see the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein) and a good one — indeed…
The Royal Ballet is literally losing the plot
If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…
Predictably meh: Scottish Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed
Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…
Does Tamara Rojo really think female choreographers are being stifled by sexism?
Tamara Rojo programmed three female choreographers for her English National Ballet spring bill because, she said, she had never danced…
Millepied’s final spring programme for the Paris Opera Ballet is brazenly American
Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…
A new dance piece in which race definitely matters: Ballet Black’s Triple Bill reviewed
Ballet’s romantic mantra could be summed up by John Keats’s ballad ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, in which a young…
I felt the earth move just as before: Akram Khan’s Kaash reviewed
You revisit an old love with wariness. Time’s passed for both of you — sharp edges have been smoothed, and…
Now that's what I call sex: Birmingham Royal Ballet's Ashton Double Bill reviewed
That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…
Wheeldon’s new ballet lacks guts: Royal Ballet’s Strapless reviewed
How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer…
Gorgeous, visionary sights from Akram Khan at the Roundhouse
How much of a compromise does a fashionable choreographer loved by all have to make with his paymasters? When he’s…
Sex trafficking, pirates, slaves: English National Ballet’s Le Corsaire is bang-on current
I’ve seen some people saying that English National Ballet’s Le Corsaire is so out-of-date it’s risible to see it staged…
We’re entering a new era for dance - expect big ballets with big stories
Dance has its own archaeological periods, and 2016’s schedules are confirming what 2015 indicated — that the era of dances…
Why did a Russian ballet dancer throw acid in his boss’s face?
The 16th June 1961 and 17th January 2013 are two indelible dates in the annals of Russian ballet. Two events…
Is Twitter now in charge of the Royal Ballet’s artistic programming?
For all the billing and cooing on public forums about the Royal Ballet’s The Two Pigeons revival, there’s a silent…
Rambert Dance: one piercing masterpiece - and one dud
Mark Baldwin, artistic director of Rambert Dance, must take responsibility for most of the good times I’ve had recently, midwife…
Carlos Acosta’s incoherent Carmen is a disaster
The love that asks no questions, the love that pays the price… The amount of unconditional love sloshing about at…
This Juliet needs a new Romeo
You always remember your first time, don’t you? And in ballet one imagines that Juliet wants to remember her first…
Giselle has floored many a ballerina — it did so again last week
English has all sorts of emotive metaphors for how we feel about the ground. We’re floored. Or well grounded. Or…
The best ballerinas in Britain at the moment are hairy and male
There was blood on the walls and floor at the birth of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965. The…
War, socialist tyranny and the oppression of the handicapped - welcome to the new dance season
If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…
Dance from Edinburgh: a flamenco master who could tell classical ballet a thing or two
Every August when London dims, Edinburgh calls, promising nothing less than ‘the greats of the arts’ at the International Festival.…
Sylvie Guillem’s better than ever in her final, final Coliseum farewell
The blackness that sweeps along the stage behind Sylvie Guillem’s disappearing figure in the Russell Maliphant piece on her farewell…
You can feel as if you’re in a colony of rabbits: Matthew Bourne’s Car Man reviewed
Hot, languorous, sizzling… I was thinking what an ideal show Matthew Bourne’s noir comedy is to watch on a summer’s…
