English National Ballet Sadlers Wells As a ballet reviewer/devotee even I admit it’s reputation as stuffy and conservative is still proving hard to shed. Venues like Sadlers Wells and The Place do their utmost to regularly reinvent the landscape and companies like Ballet Black and Rambert (to name a few) keep banging their drums. But with The Nutcracker and Swan ...
Barbican Centre What were you doing at 20 years of age? I was subsisting on a diet of super noodles and Marlboro reds, just starting an eye-opening but physically gruelling course at drama school. I certainly couldn’t claim to have been creating work that challenged and exposed the dance world’s prejudices, along with being of an impressively high calibre consistently. ...
Sadlers Wells Premiering in March 2020 Deluxe only dazzled 7 times before the world closed inward again. But never fear, 2 years on, and a new set of exciting male dancers bring BalleyBoyz’s (almost) lost show back to Sadlers Wells, and thank goodness they did! Michael Nunn and William Trevitt (artistic directors and co-founders of the company) along with being ...
Sadlers Wells Let me tell you a story. On a sweltering summer evening, a cynical dancer reviewer and a first-time ballet-goer dips their toes into the Dance Reflections Festival. Financed by Van Cleef&Arpels (lovely French bling) and hosted by Sadlers Wells, Royal Opera House, and the Tate modern. It was, as you would imagine a weird and wonderful experience….for the first 45 ...
Sadlers Wells What comes to mind when you think of the Netherlands? Soaring handsome blondes? Fields of variegated tulips? Or other more….illicit plants? Well, if you also thought of blooming youthful talent you would be bang on. Thanks to Dance Consortium Nederlands Dan Theater’s pioneering wing, NDT2 flings itself into Sadlers Wells, for a sprightly evening of brand spanking new ...
Sadler’s Wells, stage review: ‘Deeply funny and moving’With the shadow of Pina Bausch less looming large and more guiding their actions, Tanztheater Wuppertal brings one of the late choreographer’s older works back to London. But how does the gender politics of 1978, wrapped in the clothes and music of the mid-1930s, land in 2022?I love Bausch, and Kontakthof has all the elements ...
Sadler’s Wells Everyone’s favourite equestrian well is alive, half-filled but resounding with tittering shoals of teenagers. My own school trip to Conisbrough Castle seems a little bland in comparison. But it’s fitting that a young audience witness Rambert2, the offshoot of the prestigious elder sibling (Rambert), in its fledgling steps at this venue. 11 dancers battled tooth and elegantly extended ...
Good things come in threes, the Holy Trinity, the Matrix series, the Sugarbabes. A triptych of exquisite dance under Carlos Acosta’s careful directorship explores different facets of humanity and our relationship to space. They all share one quality: distinctiveness. Kicking things off we have a love letter to Birmingham. A multimedia dive into the city’s industrial past and the contributions ...
Peacock Theatre ‘Unpretentious evening of fun’ The Peacock Theatre is packed to the rafters with young and old alike cacophonous in their excitement. All geared up for an evening of energetic Dutch blokes spinning themselves around the stage. The Ruggeds have landed in Holborn. The yearly festival Breakin’ Convention has its fingers in many a creative pie. From the festival itself to Open ...
Sadlers Wells The Candoco Dance Company returns to Sadler’s Wells, staging two radically different pieces of work. Despite their wonderful ethos, thematic issues plague the evening in a variety of elusive shapes. Formed in 1991, the company’s groundbreaking inception and collaboration with disabled and non-disabled dancers is an inspiration. In an industry still obsessed with classical ideas of beauty, and ...