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Manon: English National Ballet, London Coliseum
3:01pm Wednesday 7th January 2009
Sir Kenneth MacMillan, who died in 1992, was undoubtedly one of the great choreographers of the last century. His particular forte was expressing extreme emotions – love, lust, hate, jealousy, misery – in highly imaginative duets and trios, requiring virtuoso dancers who could also act.
Edward Scissorhands: Sadlers Wells
2:52pm Wednesday 17th December 2008
Matthew Bourne’s re-telling of Tim Burton’s 1990 film unfolds its story so clearly, defines its characters so accurately, that you wonder why there was ever any need for speech. Bourne has a wonderful cast of dance-actors, led this time by Dominic North as the man with blades for fingers, and Kerry Biggin, the heroine of many of his past works.
Preview: Flashdance at New Theatre
4:04pm Wednesday 10th December 2008
It is easy for them, sitting in judgement. It’s easy to think this when you’re sitting in front of an interview panel, trying to get a job. The same thought can occur as you watch the acerbic judges delivering their verdicts on BBC TV’s Strictly Come Dancing.
Comments (0)Which is best festive Nutcracker?
4:00pm Wednesday 10th December 2008
New this season, and just seen at Milton Keynes Theatre, is Northern Ballet Theatre’s Nutcracker, with choreography by their artistic director David Nixon. David told me he was looking to give the company one of the 19th-century classics, and has gone right back to his roots to make this a feast of classical dancing.
Richard Alston Dance Company: Wycombe Swan
2:23pm Wednesday 26th November 2008
‘When you have new dancers,” says Richard Alston, “and they say ‘can I be in the new piece please ?’ you think ‘all right, I’m doing something that somebody wants’.”
Nutcracker: Milton keynes Theatre
10:59am Thursday 20th November 2008
The Nutcracker was premiered in 1892, but, curiously, it only became popular after the Second World War. The original choreography was by Petipa’s assistant Lev Ivanov, who made the “white acts“ in Swan Lake. But unlike the original versions of that work and The Sleeping Beauty, hardly anything of the Ivanov’s Nutcracker has survived, other than Petipa’s very detailed libretto, so many a choreographer has felt free to mount his own effort on Tchaikovsky’s music. So why another ? I asked David Nixon.
Richard Alston Dance Company
10:56am Thursday 20th November 2008
Over the past couple of decades there has been a huge increase in the audience for dance, and, as a result, a huge increase, too, in the number of young people training for a career in dance. This is great for audiences, as we’ve now reached a point where, even in a second-class touring musical, you get very well trained dancers. But, from a dancer’s point of view, it means competition for a place in a good company is fiercer than ever.
Jasmin Vardimon: Corn Exchange, Newbury
10:05am Thursday 6th November 2008
The Israeli choreographer Jasmin Vardimon came to the UK in 1997. Ten years of work have produced eight hours of stage material plus many hours of rehearsal material, and in Yesterday, premiered in September, she visits her memories of these past creations. There is a danger of course that this would turn out to be an indigestible hodgepodge of unconnected bits and pieces. What holds it together is the consistency of her mainly pessimistic view of the human condition, the aggression between men and women – with the woman usually coming out on top – and the daring way in which the dancers hurl themselves and each other around.
Sleeping Beauty: New Theatre, Oxford
11:49am Thursday 16th October 2008
This is a splendid and authentic version of the famous ballet. Mounted by Kenneth MacMillan, it was based on the detailed notation of the original Petipa work of 1890, brought out of Russia by Nicolas Sergeyev when he fled the Revolution. Sergeyev presented this work to the Royal Ballet, and as a former director of that company, MacMillan would have been very familiar with it.
Rambert Dance Company: Wycombe Swan
9:52am Thursday 9th October 2008
This was an evening of fine dancing and excellent choreography from a company at the top of its form. However, if you agree it’s a reviewer’s job to give you the whole picture, you will forgive the rant that follows. Enjoyment of the first two works was greatly diminished by the ludicrous inclusion of a sign-language and mime exponent, who stood at the side of the stage in his own spotlight, often more visible than the dancers, and an insufferable distraction from the performance. Mark Baldwin’s wonderful Eternal Light (pictured) Is set to a requiem by Howard Goodall, and I assumed this man was signing the words. But in the interval I was told he was there to “convey the atmosphere” of the work to the hard of hearing; and indeed for Saint-Saëns’ wordless Carnival of the Animals there he was again — miming the music, a hand held high for a high note or fluttering like a bird for a trill. This nonsense is political correctness gone mad, irritating most of the audience for the benefit of maybe ten people. Benefit? Surely not! If they were busily watching him “convey” an atmosphere that could quite clearly be sensed from the dance even without hearing the music, they would be missing the dance itself.
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