March 2016
New AQA Dance GCSE syllabus announced
Choreographers Lucy Bennett (Stopgap), James Cousins, Wayne McGregor and Kenrick 'H2O' Sandy (Boy Blue) are included in the set works... Continue Reading
Bursting With Ideas - the Dance Enterprise Summit
Donald Hutera reports on a "rich and rewarding" all day event organised by East London Dance.... Continue Reading
Jill Tookey, founder of National Youth Ballet, RIP
She was awarded the CBE for services to Dance and Young People in the New Year's Honours List, 2016. Many former company members have gone on to dance professionally... Continue Reading
Alexander Whitley Q&A
"I think there are new fields of relationships in movement that are opened up through interactive technology that can take dance and choreography to uncharted places..." Continue Reading
Richard Alston Dance Company - An Italian in Madrid/Burning/Nomadic - Sadler's Wells
Now 67, Alston shows no sign of slowing down. For me, and for others – judging from its reception – An Italian in Madrid is one of the year’s finest new works.
Richard Alston Dance Company - An Italian in Madrid -Sadler's Wells
Vidya Patel dances seamlessly among her contemporary counterparts, yet her experience of kathak shines through, in whipping turns and articulate hands.... Continue Reading
Marie Chouinard & The 7 Fingers
There’s an unsual opportunity to see the French Canadian choreographer's work this weekend at The Peacock – in Triptyque, a triple bill for circus trailblazers The 7 Fingers... Continue Reading
Richard Alston Dance Company - An Italian in Madrid - Sadler's Wells
Groups, solos and duets break ranks and run forward, flying through space with strong, powerful movement. It’s exciting, fast and punchy, a statement that this long-standing company can still hold its own today.
BalletLORENT - Snow White - Sadler's Wells
With a pre-recorded narration from Lindsay Duncan filleted from Duffy’s seductively witty and surreptitiously subversive text, this is high calibre entertainment. Incorporating very young children in the opening scenes as Snow White’s friends and later as forest animals
Richard Alston Dance Company - An Italian in Madrid/Burning/Nomadic - Sadler's Wells
Patel is an astounding stage presence – spinning soundlessly across a flood of Scarlatti notes, collecting herself into a resonating stillness.
BalletLORENT - Snow White - Sadler's Wells
Lorent makes beguiling use of her chorus of children, who tumble across the stage as Snow White’s childhood playmates and as an adorable menagerie of woodland creatures.
Ballet Black - Triple Bill - Barbican Theatre
The wild card in this triple bill comes from Arthur Pita, a choreographer who does things with ballet you don’t see anywhere else.
Ballet Black - Triple Bill - Barbican Theatre
Robinson is the staccato dancer par excellence, and Reich’s minimalist composition for glockenspiel and piccolo perfectly sets off her sharply incised line
Video games and superheroes turn boys onto ballet
The Royal Academy of Dance seems to have solved the problem of persuading boys to take ballet lessons by using superheroes and video game characters as role models. “Instead of classes based on the classic… Continue Reading
The Royal Ballet - Giselle - Royal Opera House
Muntagirov and Nuñez are technically thrilling; she, at her finest moments, can combine an absolute mastery of the choreography, with the illusion that she’s dancing it for the first time.