News
Ross MacGibbon - on the first ballet 3D live screening
Next Thursday (6 June) the Mariinsky Ballet's 'Swan Lake' will be filmed in 3D and beamed from St Petersburg to cinemas around the world. The UK's Ross MacGibbon will be directing... Continue Reading
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
Only the faintest traces of Rite remain – an echo in the music, dancers flailing in a circle – yet Khan captures the essence and spirit of Stravinsky’s pagan whirlwind with remarkable sensitivity. It’s as if he’s channelling the great man himself.
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
iTMOi – a torturous acronym for In The Mind Of Igor – is a bold but flawed attempt to do the impossible: to fathom, on stage, how Stravinsky came to create The Rite of Spring, the half-hour composition that changed music for ever.
Freeing up the narrative
In the Guardian, Judith Mackrell talks about the recent shift towards narrative ballets. She asks whether classical choreographers are being limited by expectations of a traditional storytelling formula. Continue Reading
Royal Ballet - Raven Girl/Symphony in C - Royal Opera House
All of which is bubbling away in Wayne McGregor’s flawed but fascinating new work. His first narrative ballet, constructed from Audrey Niffenegger’s graphic novel and held aloft by film composer Gabriel Yared’s eclectic score, is a mélange of the bea…
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
Never mind what was iTMOi ('in the mind of Igor'), WTF was iTMO Akram? Ok, let’s back up, and see if we can decipher the question... Continue Reading
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
There is much to admire here (and let’s say hurrah for upturning the way that it’s always the young woman who gets sacrificed) but this is a work that leaves impressions rather than searing indentations.
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
It’s not another riot, but remains atmospheric and strongly danced.
Akram Khan Company - iTMOi - Sadler's Wells
And while iTMOi is a far from perfect work, fractured and oddly paced, it is through Khan’s shockingly imagined chaos that we’re drawn into the creative maelstrom from which art is born.
Sergei Polunin to dance at the London Coliseum in July
Sergei Polunin was in London this week to confirm that he will be appearing at the London Coliseum with the Moscow Stanislavsky Ballet in Roland Petit’s 1975 version of Coppélia, in July. The star Ukranian da… Continue Reading
Royal Ballet - Raven Girl/Symphony in C - Royal Opera House
There’s more to think about than in your average Swan Lake but it’s narratively unsatisfying. It feels like no other ballet, though, and that’s an artistic accolade.
Royal Ballet - Raven Girl/Symphony in C - Royal Opera House
Sarah Lamb as the Girl is outstanding: fearless in her battle with gravity, yet with a core of bewildered vulnerability that evokes a 21st-century Odette.
Royal Ballet - Raven Girl/Symphony in C - Royal Opera House
Two contrasting single act ballets - the deep, dark, soporific expressionism of McGregor long overstays its welcome; the glittering, effervescent, uplifting romance of Balanchine leaves one wanting more.. Continue Reading
Royal Ballet - Raven Girl/Symphony in C - Royal Opera House
Like its heroine, the new collaboration between choreographer Wayne McGregor and author Audrey Niffenegger is neither one thing nor the other. Caught between worlds, the ballet has striking elements but doesn’t take flight.
Bern Ballett, Witch-hunt at Linbury Studio Theatre
Marston is prolific, and her experience shows in the sophisticated structure of the piece, which was created from a scenario devised by herself and the theatre director Edward Kemp.