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Electro Kif: The Oxford Playhouse

11:53am Wednesday 28th March 2012

According to director Blanca Li, this is the first theatrical show based on electro dance, a new style that has evolved in Paris over the past few years. Li, a widely experienced producer, director and choreographer, told me she decided to make a show based on Electro Kif after coming across dancers in a Paris Park. But the eight young men she has picked are from the very top of the tree; multiple competition-winners and incredibly fit, they must have spent years in various sorts of training. The show is terrific, completely fresh, with enormous energy, great to watch and also hugely enjoyable for the performers.

Space to explore phobias

4:51pm Thursday 22nd March 2012

DAVID BELLAN meets Pegasus Theatre’s dance co-ordinator Allan Hutson whose new piece will be premiered as part of a double-bill

Highly charged

4:46pm Thursday 22nd March 2012

DAVID BELLAN talks to Blanca Li, director of the street dance company Electro Kif which comes to the Oxford Playhouse next week

La Fille Mal Gardee, Russian State Ballet of Siberia, Aylesbury Waterside Theatre

3:28pm Wednesday 21st March 2012

La Fille Mal Gardée is a light-hearted tale of country folk. Colas, a young farmer, is in love with Lise, and she loves him.

Moving With the Times: Pegasus Theatre

1:38pm Wednesday 14th March 2012

Moving With the Times is a showcase for Oxford talent, presenting new work specially commissioned for Dancin’ Oxford 2012. This year’s performers were an interestingly varied bunch.

Birmingham Royal Ballet: Ashton double-bill

1:14pm Wednesday 7th March 2012

Birmingham Royal Ballet opened its new season with two major works by Sir Frederick Ashton, arguably Britain’s greatest choreographer. They showed the company to be in great form, and still able to deliver Ashton’s very individual style.

Flamenco Intimo: Pegasus Theatre

1:06pm Wednesday 7th March 2012

Last Saturday we drove down Iffley Road, and, to our surprise, found ourselves in a ‘pena’, one of those intimate Spanish nightclubs devoted to flamenco, where the performers are so close that you can almost touch them. The lower part of the seating in the Pegasus had been removed, and instead of watching in neat rows, we sat at round tables scattered casually around the dimly-lit space, candles flickering in the gloom and a bar conveniently placed to the side. Until you looked back at the remaining seating, the theatre was unrecognisable; it had become a night-club, and I take my hat off to this transformation, which created just the right atmosphere for the show.

Kathakbox: Pegasus Theatre

1:03pm Wednesday 7th March 2012

On one level Sonia Sabri’s work is a protest against putting people into boxes, ethnically or otherwise. Its inspiration is the poem Tick Box by Shan Bansil, in which the writer muses on whether or not he should tick the boxes on the form he’s filling in: “They just wanna know whether I’m black, white, Indian or Chinese. Whether I’m 18–34, got a degree and a handful of GCSEs.” He bemoans the fact that there are not enough boxes to encapsulate his character and thoughts.

Tavaziva: Pegasus Theatre

2:19pm Wednesday 29th February 2012

Bawren Tavaziva grew up in Zimbabwe and came to the UK in 1998.

The Barefaced Night: O' Reilly Theatre, Keble College

3:03pm Wednesday 22nd February 2012

This re-telling of a Scandinavian folk-tale has a lot of emotional depth to it, thanks to a production that makes the most of its few professional performers and its amateur cast of students. Princess Fayra is not happy at court and given to roaming the woods. She meets a bear with a golden wreath that she covets, and he hands it over on condition that he can come and fetch her to be his bride. Perhaps surprisingly, she agrees to this, but finds to her delight that he is in fact an unhappy king, Valemon, cursed to be a bear by day and a man by night, as long as no human sees him. So she loves him for nearly a year in darkness, but, eventually, can’t resist lighting a candle to look at his face. Disaster! The curse is now forever, and only three days before the full year, when it would have been broken.