‘hope to recontextualise the past, improve the present, and hopefully change the future’ Now I am a history girlie, chuck me a bustle, a hoop skirt, a cod piece (cheeky) or a corset and I’m blissful. However uncomfortably, I am a feminist, and so often the voices of women are absent or drowned out from the past. Enter Ava Pickett! ...

‘Korean art has long enthralled the West: from Changgeuk and Pansori (Opera/folk performance) to swooping, spidery calligraphy. Now, a festival of dance expands our horizons once again.’ Having missed Jinjo Crew at Breakin’ Convention at the beginning of the month, I fairly squeaked when I spied that a Korean dance festival was on at The Place and in its eighth year. It is supported ...

‘For the more witchy among you, May Day bank holiday or Beltane is all about renewal, regrowth, and May poles. I have my own tradition, which is an artistic celebration of the new, budding, and blossoming: Breakin’ Convention.’ Due to word limits and a very stuffed festival, I shall be sparing with background. Twenty-two years ago, HipHop legend Jonzi D and his ...

‘Luminous prose, weaving emotion and poetry’ When London feels like it’s having a hot grey bowl of diffused sunlight pressed down upon it, many flee to the AC-wafted basement of the Barbican. But what is clicking along down there pulls more of a crowd than just those on the hunt for a cool troglodyte refuge. Samuel Beckett returns to one ...

‘swelling and quietly mournful’ We the assembled shuffle in our finery, clothes dancing with embroidered jasmine and cherry blossom. We wait, breath baited for the glowing diamond of classical music: Lang Lang, unassuming in black with a shock of dark hair, pacing on stage to weave the piano magic we have heard so much about. Starting playing at 3 this ...

‘Go on down, get drunk and have a dance, spend some of your hard-earned doubloons, experience some queer magic, cabaret, and fight with your feet!’ Another queer venue to be struck down: Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club is tottering, reopening, and running but with the shadow of eviction looming. However, some heavy hitters (Equality) have rallied behind the banner, an ...

‘Flavour fiesta’ Starting a review with an adage might be pretentious, but here we go: the age-old “too many cooks spoil the broth” is a worry for any pop-up. Tasca at Câv, a fledgling of only a month, could easily fall into this over-engineered soup, but thankfully sidesteps it with enviable grace. In a vaulting industrial semi-circle under the clomping ...

‘Holly Blakey is hot hot hot. This double bill gives an excerpt of an upcoming full-length show and a flash of a past one, aiming to demonstrate range.’ Holly Blakey‘s productions have been attended by Vivienne Westwood; she’s designed the movement for the music videos of Florence and the Machine and Coldplay and worked with the likes of Gucci and ...

‘Don’t we all want to regress evolutionarily and return to the trees? Ok just me? Well, Dance Reflections does just that with Rachid Ouramdane and the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève’s latest highline extravaganza.’ Arguably the best-heeled festival in the city, your little theatre reviewer returned to the Dance Reflections byVan Cleef & Arpels Festival for much more than just the ...

‘Liv Lorent and her eponymous troop dominate the Easter program at Sadler’s Wells East, with two retellings of Snow White aimed at different age groups. However, the adult version succumbs to its own poison apple.’ Us reviewers are normally solitary little moles, burrowing from our nests to and from theatres across the city/country. Occasionally, we do meet up, sacrificing a ...