There is more to 19th-century ballet than fluttering sylphs, spectral broken-hearted peasant girls and doomed feathery princesses. There is comedy and fun, too. Take the 1869 classic Don Quixote, a Spanish romp loosely based on Miguel de Cervantes’ literary masterpiece. The ballet was Marius Petipa’s second major work — the first being The Pharaoh’s Daughter
Homage to the Queen is one of two ballets that Frederick Ashton conceived with a special occasion in mind —the other being Birthday Offering. Created in 1953, Homage was a choreographic celebration of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Not unlike the court masques of the 16th and 17th centuries, the ballet draws upon an
Staging the 1890 classic The Sleeping Beauty in the 21st century is not an easy task. Recent studies, discoveries and even philological reconstructions have heightened historical and stylistic awareness among dance-goers, thus generating expectations that cannot be easily overlooked. Yet philology and historical accuracy alone turn any work into a dead museum exhibit, at the
Listing page content here Dance and eroticism have long gone hand in hand. For centuries, moving bodies have been regarded as arousing and dangerously tempting. Twenty-first-century adverts still draw upon that popular equation and delve more or less seriously into the intrinsic sensuality of dance, whether it be ballet, modern or even street dance. Yet
There is no doubt that BareBones’ The 5 Man Show will stay vividly in the memory of any dance-goer There is no doubt that BareBones’ The 5 Man Show will stay vividly in the memory of any dance-goer — and for a long time, too. This fizzy, moving, hilarious, corrosive triple bill is an ideal
Phoenix Dance Theatre is ‘25 years young’, as a filmed documentary shown halfway through last Thursday’s performance reminded us. The notion of youth is a relative one, particularly in the performing-arts world, where a quarter of a century is often regarded as a respectable old age, synonymous with a well-established reputation, a sound history and,
Oh joy, oh bliss, it is Nutcracker season again! Hordes of overdressed and overexcited children invade our theatres, much to the despair of those who know that the kids’ excitement and attention will fade as soon as they realise that neither the Mouse King nor the Sugar Plum Fairy can be incinerated by one of
There seems to be a problem with the way some modern-day dance-makers deal with music. Twice in a fortnight, I have been confronted by works in which the score had no relevance to the choreography, and performers seemed to dance to a different tune. I am referring to Rafael Bonachela’s Curious Conscience, reviewed last week,
More than a year since its re-emergence from oblivion, Frederick Ashton’s Sylvia keeps eliciting thunderous ovations. Not surprisingly, one might add. The restored three-acter is not just a shimmering tribute to Ashton’s genius; it is sheer fun, too. Indeed, ‘fun’ more than ‘artistic pleasure’ is what should be expected, for Sylvia is not one of
Some dance works age, some don’t. Yet it is difficult to pinpoint the factors that bestow immortality on something as ephemeral as ballet. In the case of Kenneth MacMillan’s Manon, however, timelessness stems mainly, though not exclusively, from a masterly woven dramatic layout; it is through the possibility of diverse interpretative readings that the ballet
Mark Morris Dance Group has long been a regular feature of London dance seasons. Still, the power to surprise in Morris’s choreography has not waned. Take, for instance, the first of the two programmes presented last week at Sadler’s Wells, as part of the company’s 25th anniversary tour. Although signature traits informed each work’s choreography,
France has long been the cradle of ground-breaking new dance, thanks to a score of provocative performance-makers. It was about time, therefore, that an internationally renowned festival such as Dance Umbrella paid tribute to a country which has produced radical and revitalising choreography over the past three decades. Former enfant terrible of what has been
It was with the 1832 ballet La Sylphide that Marie Taglioni acquired international repute and legendary status. Her angel-like, gravity-defying dancing earned her the affectionate appellation ‘Christian’ dancer, which sits somewhat uncomfortably with the mischievous nature of the eponymous role. Stark contradictions, however, were typical of the Romantic era: the idealised woman could be angel
The 2005 Dance Umbrella season kicked off last week with the London debut of the Forsythe Company, created after William Forsythe’s longstanding and successful collaboration with Frankfurt Ballet ended for debatable administrative and artistic reasons. The event attracted an audience of electrified Forsythe diehards, but was not memorable. The oddly mixed programme started with two
I am always thrilled by a good performance of Giselle, especially when it is informed by choreographic consistency, dramatic fluidity and historical accuracy. That is why, last Friday, I left Sadler’s Wells in a jolly good mood. Indeed, Ballet Nacional de Cuba’s Giselle benefits greatly from the insight of its artistic director Alicia Alonso, a
Performance-makers like to experiment with creative modes and ideas. It is a natural urge in a world in which ‘new’ is synonymous with survival. Jiri Kyli
Unlike Giselle, Coppelia, The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, the romantic ballet La Sylphide does not boast a memorable score. Neither the music, composed by Schneitzhoeffer for the original 1832 Parisian version, nor that composed by Lovenskjold for Auguste Bournonville’s 1836 Danish staging — arguably, the best-known today — have the luscious musical
In Michael Keegan-Dolan’s Giselle for Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre there are no pretty peasants on pointes and no picturesque rustic cottages. What you get instead is a small Irish rural community thriving on poisonous gossip, petty jealousy and highly repressed sexual urges. The heroine, too, is not the quintessential embodiment of any Romantic female ideal.
For 100 years, ballet has been represented by the image of a ballerina with a feathered headdress and an arm raised as a quivering wing. Then, in 1995, came Matthew Bourne’s Swan Lake, and ballet’s icon lost its long-held supremacy. The Swan Princess met her masculine match: a bare-torsoed, bare-footed, muscled Adonis in feathery trousers.
Mark Morris’s The Hard Nut occupies a special place in the history of ‘alternative’ versions of The Nutcracker. Created in 1991, it is an outstanding, wittily irreverent and thought-provoking example of choreographic revisitation. Without departing too radically from the familiar narrative of the 1892 ballet classic, Morris moved the action to the mid/late 1960s and