Subtle, intriguing and inventive: Rambert’s Death Trap reviewed
Ben Duke belongs to a class of younger choreographers who have decided to flout the convention that dancers should remain…
Can everyone please shut up about Maria Callas?
Rupert Christiansen on the cult of Callas
Uninventive and far too polite: BRB’s Black Sabbath – The Ballet reviewed
Not being an aficionado of the heavy-metal genre, I snootily suspected that I would rather be standing in the rain…
Dancing feat
Aaron S. Watkin, an affable bearded Canadian, is the new artistic director of English National Ballet. He arrives from Dresden,…
Jumping for joy
One could soundly advise any choreographer to avoid music so transcendentally great in itself that dance can add nothing except…
50 not out
In 2015 Carlos Acosta announced his retirement from the Royal Ballet and the classical repertory. It seemed like the right…
The brutality of ballet
Despite #MeToo and the new resistance to male bullying, the dance world is still ferocious and unforgiving, writes Rupert Christiansen
Short of sparkle
Having been unexpectedly delighted by the Royal Ballet’s revival of Christopher Wheeldon’s Corybantic Games at Covent Garden last week, I…
Lost in space
My witty friend whispered that Wayne McGregor’s new ballet Untitled, 2023 put her in mind of Google HQ – it’s…
Snapshots from the edge
This month I’ve been venturing into the further reaches of modern dance – obscure territory where I don’t feel particularly…
Cheap and cheerful
Fulfilling its sacred duty to serve regions that higher culture tends to avoid, Birmingham Royal Ballet made a midweek visit…
Heavenly creatures
Yes, yes, I know. You’ve had your fill of David Attenborough’s jeremiads, you’ve heard enough already about climate change catastrophe.…
Virtue without virtuosity
If you live in London, you may well have spotted Shen Yun’s enormous candy-coloured posters on the Underground, endorsed by…
Animal magic
It must be 20 years since I first saw Akram Khan dance, and I will never forget the impression he…
Sweet nothings
Despite its widespread rating as one of his masterpieces, Frederick Ashton’s Cinderella is chock full of knots, gaps and stumbling…
Turbo-charged Tiler
The death last week at the age of 83 of the sublime Lynn Seymour – muse to Ashton and MacMillan,…
Best in show
Civilisation has never nurtured more than a handful of front-rank choreographers within any one generation, with the undesirable result that…
With added Spice
‘We hope you enjoy the performance,’ announced the Tannoy before the lights went down for How did we get here?…
Going like the clappers
A dank Tuesday evening in a West End theatre. The auditorium is barely two thirds full. The play is nothing…
An honest doubter
A Christmas revival of New Adventures’ ten-year-old production of Sleeping Beauty stirs up all my nagging ambivalence about Matthew Bourne’s…
Dazzling gems
The Koh-i-Noor in this Diamond Celebration of 60 years of the Friends of the Royal Opera House garnered the least…
Exhilarating: English National Ballet triple bill, at Sadler's Wells, reviewed
Headed for San Francisco, Tamara Rojo bows out of her directorship of English National Ballet with an exhilarating triple bill…
