Ismene Brown

Dancer, choreographer, iconoclast: Merce Cunningham in 1962

Merce Cunningham’s work was magical, intangible, Einsteinian – revival is futile

13 April 2019 9:00 am

On Tuesday, thousands of miles apart, in three great cities, London, New York and Los Angeles, 75 dancers will dance…

Tyrone Singleton and Jenna Roberts in MacMillan’s Concerto

Seeing the light

21 October 2017 9:00 am

Dance is an ephemeral art. It keeps few proper records of its products. Reputations are written in rumours and reviews.…

Victoria Sibson as Bertha Mason and Javier Torres as Edward Rochester in Cathy Marston’s ‘Jane Eyre’

Northern Ballet has triumphed with Brontë: Jane Eyre reviewed

4 June 2016 9:00 am

The difference between a poor ballet of the book (see the Royal Ballet’s Frankenstein) and a good one — indeed…

Vile body: Steven McRae as the Creature in ‘Frankenstein’

The Royal Ballet is literally losing the plot

21 May 2016 9:00 am

If a football manager produces a string of losses, the writing is on the wall and out he goes. He’s…

Predictably meh: Scottish Ballet’s new Swan Lake reviewed

7 May 2016 9:00 am

Every ballet company wants a box-office earner. But why Scottish Ballet’s leader Christopher Hampson kept on at David Dawson until…

A feast of Mexicanismo: Tamara Rojo as Frida Kahlo in ‘Broken Wings’

Does Tamara Rojo really think female choreographers are being stifled by sexism?

23 April 2016 9:00 am

Tamara Rojo programmed three female choreographers for her English National Ballet spring bill because, she said, she had never danced…

Millepied’s final spring programme for the Paris Opera Ballet is brazenly American

9 April 2016 9:00 am

Paris Opera Ballet plays hard to get. It doesn’t deign to travel all the way over here, thanks to a…

A new dance piece in which race definitely matters: Ballet Black’s Triple Bill reviewed

2 April 2016 9:00 am

Ballet’s romantic mantra could be summed up by John Keats’s ballad ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’, in which a young…

I felt the earth move just as before: Akram Khan’s Kaash reviewed

19 March 2016 9:00 am

You revisit an old love with wariness. Time’s passed for both of you — sharp edges have been smoothed, and…

Now that's what I call sex: Birmingham Royal Ballet's Ashton Double Bill reviewed

5 March 2016 9:00 am

That joke about the young bull who tells the old bull, ‘Hey, Dad, see all those cows — let’s run…

Fallen woman: Natalia Osipova as Amélie Gautreau

Wheeldon’s new ballet lacks guts: Royal Ballet’s Strapless reviewed

20 February 2016 9:00 am

How could it possibly go wrong? The magnetic, seething Russian star Natalia Osipova playing the tragic woman in John Singer…

Gorgeous, visionary sights from Akram Khan at the Roundhouse

6 February 2016 9:00 am

How much of a compromise does a fashionable choreographer loved by all have to make with his paymasters? When he’s…

Sex trafficking, pirates, slaves: English National Ballet’s Le Corsaire is bang-on current

23 January 2016 9:00 am

I’ve seen some people saying that English National Ballet’s Le Corsaire is so out-of-date it’s risible to see it staged…

We’re entering a new era for dance - expect big ballets with big stories

16 January 2016 9:00 am

Dance has its own archaeological periods, and 2016’s schedules are confirming what 2015 indicated — that the era of dances…

Why did a Russian ballet dancer throw acid in his boss’s face?

12 December 2015 9:00 am

The 16th June 1961 and 17th January 2013 are two indelible dates in the annals of Russian ballet. Two events…

Is Twitter now in charge of the Royal Ballet’s artistic programming?

5 December 2015 9:00 am

For all the billing and cooing on public forums about the Royal Ballet’s The Two Pigeons revival, there’s a silent…

Rambert Dance: one piercing masterpiece - and one dud

21 November 2015 9:00 am

Mark Baldwin, artistic director of Rambert Dance, must take responsibility for most of the good times I’ve had recently, midwife…

Carlos Acosta’s incoherent Carmen is a disaster

7 November 2015 9:00 am

The love that asks no questions, the love that pays the price… The amount of unconditional love sloshing about at…

This Juliet needs a new Romeo

29 October 2015 9:00 am

You always remember your first time, don’t you? And in ballet one imagines that Juliet wants to remember her first…

Giselle has floored many a ballerina — it did so again last week

17 October 2015 8:00 am

English has all sorts of emotive metaphors for how we feel about the ground. We’re floored. Or well grounded. Or…

The best ballerinas in Britain at the moment are hairy and male

3 October 2015 9:00 am

There was blood on the walls and floor at the birth of Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet in 1965. The…

War, socialist tyranny and the oppression of the handicapped - welcome to the new dance season

19 September 2015 8:00 am

If there’s one thing scarcer than hen’s teeth in serious choreography nowadays, it’s a light heart. When was the last…

Dance from Edinburgh: a flamenco master who could tell classical ballet a thing or two

29 August 2015 9:00 am

Every August when London dims, Edinburgh calls, promising nothing less than ‘the greats of the arts’ at the International Festival.…

Sylvie Guillem’s better than ever in her final, final Coliseum farewell

15 August 2015 9:00 am

The blackness that sweeps along the stage behind Sylvie Guillem’s disappearing figure in the Russell Maliphant piece on her farewell…

You can feel as if you’re in a colony of rabbits: Matthew Bourne’s Car Man reviewed

1 August 2015 9:00 am

Hot, languorous, sizzling… I was thinking what an ideal show Matthew Bourne’s noir comedy is to watch on a summer’s…