Royal ballet
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…
Is that Sylvie Guillem? Or R2-D2? Guillem's farewell dance at Sadler’s Wells reviewed
There’s been a clutch of middle-aged danseuses taking leave of life in one way or another recently. We’ve seen the…
Rapture - and loathing: Woolf Works at the Royal Ballet reviewed
People have been saying that Wayne McGregor’s new Woolf Works has reinvented the three-act ballet, but not so. William Forsythe…
La Fille mal gardee at the Royal Opera House reviewed: light, lithe and tender
The current talking-point at the Royal Ballet is the Russians milling around. One can sound unfortunately as if one’s starting…
Birmingham Royal Ballet review: A Father Ted Carmina Burana
We ballet-goers may be the most self-deceiving audiences in theatre. Put a ‘new work’ in front of us and half…
Will the real Swan Lake please stand up
Ismene Brown unpicks the great enigma of ballet theatre
London International Mime Festival review: on juggling, dance and Wayne Rooney's hair transplant
January is something of a palate-cleanser for the year, as the London International Mime Festival flies in plane-loads of companies…
ENB’s Swan Lake: the rights and wrongs of ballet thighs
There’s been heated disagreement over the past week about what’s right and wrong. Is the rocket-propelled ex-Bolshoi enfant terrible Ivan…
An American in Paris: a zingy new Wheeldon dance-musical that you won’t want to miss
A new year must start with hope and resolution, and if you’re very rich, with influence in the highest places,…
Royal Ballet’s Don Quixote: Carlos Acosta is too brainy with this no-brain ballet
One feels the pang of impending failure whenever the Royal Ballet ventures like a deluded Don Quixote into a periodic…
Sylvie Guillem interview: ‘A lot of people hate me. Bon. You can’t please everybody’
On the eve of her retirement, Sylvie Guillem talks to Ismene Brown about legs, boobs and changing people’s lives
Thomas Ades’s Polaris at Sadler’s Wells: the dance premiere of the year
This has been an extraordinarily exciting fortnight, on and off stage. Premieres in anything from ice-skating to classical ballet, charismatic…
Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet battle for the heart of English dance
English ballet erupted out of the second world war in the hands of the rival choreographers Frederick Ashton and Robert…
Does a tart like Manon have a place in the Royal Ballet repertoire?
What can the Royal Opera House be insinuating about its target audience? No sooner had Anna Nicole closed than Manon…
The Royal Ballet's triple bill was danced to perfection
There was a time when the term ‘world première’ was not as fashionable as it is these days. Great works…
