Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games has a new West End home and can be seen at the Playhouse Theatre from 10 October until 3 January 2016, following a highly successful six-month limited season at the Dominion Theatre, which finished on 5 September.
FROM DOWN UNDER: Australian Ballet’s The Sleeping Beauty
Lavish production values and wonderful dance combine for a world class, highly traditional new staging of evergreen classic The Sleeping Beauty. Created and promoted over an extended period, the highly anticipated production […]
NATIONAL YOUTH BALLET GALA 2015 – Sadler’s Wells
The National Youth Ballet (NYB) celebrated the end of its 2015 season with a Gala programme at Sadler’s Wells and the home of dance provided the ideal setting for some of Britain’s most promising young talent.
THE AUSTRALIAN BALLET: 20:21 – Melbourne, Australia
The Australian Ballet traverses from the twentieth to twenty-first century in this scintillating freestyle triple bill that anchors a company premiere and a world premiere with a treasured classic. If 20:21 is […]
ALBA FLAMENCA – Edinburgh Fringe
✭✭✭✭✭ Inviting and inspiring:
With so many shows on offer, it’s easy to forget a lot of what you see at the fringe. But you’ll never forget the way something makes you feel. Alba Flamenca is an emotive and fiery fiesta that inspires as much as it entertains.
DOLLS – Edinburgh Fringe
Underbelly Circus Hub, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 11th August 2015 Darkly disturbing, the brand new show from Cirk La Putyka, Dolls, premieres in Edinburgh and brings a theatrical world of stark dereliction to the stage of the Circus Hub’s Lafayette venue. The fabric of society is broken down in both the scenography of portentous urban decay and the ability […]
ONE NIGHT AT BIG SEXY CIRCUS CITY… – Edinburgh Fringe
Big Sexy Circus City, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 8th August 2015 One of two dedicated venues for circus work this year at Edinburgh Fringe (the other being the teething problem-fraught Underbelly Circus Hub), Big Sexy Circus City is home to two tent venues, as well as outdoor performance spaces and the all-important bar. I will admit that […]
SIRO-A – Edinburgh Fringe
Assembly George Square Theatre, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 8th August 2015 If circus is about taking physical human skills and presenting them in surprising and entertaining ways, then Siro-A is the realm where digital skills and dance combine, in a series of performed ‘acts’. It is also very much about us as the audience being amazed, and […]
SOMETHING – Edinburgh Fringe
Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Festival Fringe; 8th August 2015 Something is a comic flickbook of everyday fantasy, presented by Italian company Liberi-Di. The seven performers each have a natural humour in their presentation, and excellent physical technique – including superb tricking skills that, somehow, always seem cooler than the traditional acrobatic repertoire. I am transfixed for […]
Dance audiences – everyone prepared to be surprised
Any medium scale regional theatre programmer with an interest in finding a local audience for modern dance would have been green with envy if they had joined me and hundreds of others to see new pieces by Ghislaine Doté, Alesandra Seutin and Andrea Queens in London this weekend. It was a packed attentive audience from 4 to 80 years old, families, culturally diverse, and I suspect, representative of the community mix of the area, watching new contemporary work by unfamiliar choreographers. The secret…
From Down Under: Alexei Ratmansky’s CINDERELLA at The Australian Ballet
A second opportunity arose to see Alexei Ratmansky’s Cinderella, a visit made all the sweeter by the surprise appearance of Madeleine Eastoe in the title role. Nominated for a Helpmann Award this […]
MADAM BUTTERFLY & PERPETUUM MOBILE – Northern Ballet
Opening with Perpetuum Mobile, a short work choreographed by Christopher Hampson. Set to Bach’s Violin Concerto in E Major, the performance mirrored the increasingly complex layers of music found within the composition. The dancers’ movements proved continual, fluid and dynamic with Lucia Solari, Ayami Miyata and Javier Torres in particular offering captivating performances. Created over 15 years ago, Hampson says he was “initially inspired by the score.” This was evident and it is the close marriage between movement and music that made Perpetuum Mobile a joyous contemporary piece to watch.
CIRKOPOLIS – Touring
Mayflower Theatre, Southampton; 11th March 2015 The brightly ornate greens and golds of the Mayflower Theatre seem at odds with the ominous sounds playing behind its red velvet curtains. Organic drips and thunder turn to rolling objects, clicking machinery, engines and clanging metal, and finally a rhythmic pulsing and electronic buzz. The house lights begin to […]