Dance

An awesome and hilarious display: Rambert's Rooms reviewed

17 April 2021 9:00 am

Social distancing continues to put the kibosh on large-scale productions, but Jo Stromgren has a nifty workaround in Rooms, which…

Zippy and stylish, with a glint of mischief: William Forsythe’s The Barre Project reviewed

3 April 2021 9:00 am

In the early Noughties there was a Hollywood subgenre (by which I mean a few cult movies, each with terrible…

Gripping – if you skip the non-stop Yentobbing: Dancing Nation reviewed

6 February 2021 9:00 am

Thank God for the fast-forward button. Sadler’s Wells had planned a tentative return to live performance last month but the…

I miss the faint hiss of a spinning foot: Royal Ballet – Live reviewed

14 November 2020 9:00 am

Ballet lovers driven square-eyed by a drip feed of livestreaming and archive footage have been pining for the patter of…

Tranquil, silky and serene: Birmingham Royal Ballet’s Lazuli Sky reviewed

7 November 2020 9:00 am

When Carlos Acosta was named artistic director of Birmingham Royal Ballet in January of this year, he announced ambitious plans…

The Royal Ballet's return was joyous – but the presenter was gushing and witless

17 October 2020 9:00 am

Mothballed since March when it danced a farewell Swan Lake, the Royal Ballet made a triumphant and joyous return to…

Vigour and verve from a unique new Rite of Spring: Dancing at Dusk reviewed

8 August 2020 9:00 am

Dancing at Dusk captures the final rehearsal of a new version of Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring. It’s only…

Sensual and silky: the Royal Ballet returns to Covent Garden

27 June 2020 9:00 am

Wayne McGregor’s Morgen! and Frederick Ashton’s Dance of the Blessed Spirits are the first pieces of live dance — streamed…

The genius of Martha Graham

30 May 2020 9:00 am

If eight weeks in lockdown have brought out my baser impulses (biscuits by the sleeve, total renunciation of waistbands), it’s…

Watching dance online is an advantage, not a concession: BalletBoyz – Deluxe reviewed

11 April 2020 9:00 am

Another day in isolation, another bid to find joy in my lone state-sanctioned walk. (Pro tip: stay out longer than…

Another triumph for Crystal Pite and Jonathon Young at Sadler’s Wells

14 March 2020 9:00 am

It must have been hard for Crystal Pite and Jonathan Young to live up to the success of 2016’s devastating…

A bruising encounter: Pina Bausch's Bluebeard reviewed

29 February 2020 9:00 am

Pina Bausch’s best work always hovered between the familiar and the unknown. The late choreographer revelled in borders and thresholds,…

Chilling: Arthur Pita’s The Little Match Girl at Sadler’s Wells reviewed

11 January 2020 9:00 am

Did your feet twitch? That’s the test of The Red Shoes. Did your toes point? Your ankles flex? Your arches…

How to make a Christmas ballet hit: behind the scenes at Scottish Ballet’s Snow Queen

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Ballet, like bread sauce and green chartreuse, is often just a Christmas thing and the UK’s national companies plan their…

Unsettlingly faithful to the spirit of Schiele: Staging Schiele reviewed

16 November 2019 9:00 am

‘Come up and see my Schieles.’ Those were the words that ended a friend’s fledgling relationship with an art collector.…

A last dose of vitamin D before the clocks go back: Royal Ballet’s triple bill reviewed

2 November 2019 9:00 am

Were those gerberas in Francesca Hayward’s bouquet on opening night? Gentlemen admirers take note: no woman, ballerina or otherwise, has…

Manon can be magnificent, this one was merely meh

19 October 2019 9:00 am

Manon: minx or martyr? There are two ways to play Kenneth MacMillan’s courtesan. Is Manon an ingénue, a guileless country…

Nothing sings and shimmies like Alvin Ailey

14 September 2019 9:00 am

Hit them with your best shot? Or save the best till last? Almost 30 years after Alvin Ailey’s death in…

Daffy charm and diabolo tricks: Bolshoi’s The Bright Stream reviewed

17 August 2019 9:00 am

The Bright Stream is a ballet about a collective farm. Forget everything you know about collectivism — the failed harvests,…

Silly but stellar: Bolshoi Ballet’s Spartacus reviewed

10 August 2019 9:00 am

It’s togas-a-go-go as the Bolshoi bring Yuri Grigorovich’s 1956 ballet Spartacus to the Royal Opera House. Oh dear, I did…

Pam Tanowitz’s Four Quartets is a revelation

1 June 2019 9:00 am

T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets is full of music and movement. The players, such as they are, slip, slide, shake, tumble,…

Natalia Osipova, cursed with a frightful Ascot fascinator, a Halloween shock-wig of black pipe cleaners, in Medusa as the Royal Opera House Credit: ©ROH, 2019 Photograph by Tristram Kenton

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s #MeToo Medusa is a bad hair day from Hades

18 May 2019 9:00 am

Medusa is the bad hair day from Hades. Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s retelling of the Greek myth is frizzy, tangled and…

Electrifying: English National Ballet’s She Persisted reviewed

13 April 2019 9:00 am

‘Where was the Kahlo brow?’ asked my guest in the first interval of English National Ballet’s She Persisted, a triple…

Dancer, choreographer, iconoclast: Merce Cunningham in 1962

A masterclass of menace and magnificence: Romeo and Juliet reviewed

6 April 2019 9:00 am

Two households, both alike in dignity. Capulets in red tights, Montagues in green. Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet opens in…

Still far from perfect but chaps will like it: Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein reviewed

16 March 2019 9:00 am

Choreographer Richard Alston is now 70 and his latest outing at Sadler’s Wells is a greatest hits medley. As with…