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Dance

The Sun King deserves better than this silly cabaret from Birmingham Royal Ballet

Plus: Paco Pena throws some jazz into the flamenco mix at Sadler's Wells

4 July 2015

9:00 AM

4 July 2015

9:00 AM

The King Dances

Birmingham Royal Ballet

Paco Peña Flamenco Dance Company — Flamencura

Sadler’s Wells

It’s a comfort that the creation of a new ballet inspired by French court entertainment can still happen in the amnesiac ballet country that Britain has become. The idea of making a modern-day meditation on the first ballet — Louis XIV’s 12-hour epic Le Ballet de la nuit (1653) — is as intellectual as Wayne McGregor’s roping in of cognitive science as source material.

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