Dance
German refugees transformed British cultural life - but at a price
German-speaking refugees dragged British culture into the 20th century. But that didn’t go down well in Stepney or Stevenage, says William Cook
War, socialist tyranny and the oppression of the handicapped - welcome to the new dance season
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
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
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
Hot, languorous, sizzling… I was thinking what an ideal show Matthew Bourne’s noir comedy is to watch on a summer’s…
The Sun King deserves better than this silly cabaret from Birmingham Royal Ballet
It’s a comfort that the creation of a new ballet inspired by French court entertainment can still happen in the…
The choreographer that does things to tango couples that Relate would not recommend
I often regret that I’m writing in the past tense here, but never more than about milonga. It is such…
Is that Sylvie Guillem? Or R2-D2? Guillem's farewell dance at Sadler’s Wells reviewed
There’s been a clutch of middle-aged danseuses taking leave of life in one way or another recently. We’ve seen the…
Rapture - and loathing: Woolf Works at the Royal Ballet reviewed
People have been saying that Wayne McGregor’s new Woolf Works has reinvented the three-act ballet, but not so. William Forsythe…
Rosie Kay’s 5 Soldiers: brutishly physical and powerfully striking
In dance, it’s usually the moment the boys start fighting that challenges your suspension of disbelief. Synchronised fencing (MacMillan’s Romeo…
La Fille mal gardee at the Royal Opera House reviewed: light, lithe and tender
The current talking-point at the Royal Ballet is the Russians milling around. One can sound unfortunately as if one’s starting…
An Indian Bayadère that meets a sludgy end
For an Indian woman to make a dancework about La Bayadère is a promising prospect. This classical ballet of 1877…
50 shades of beige: English National Ballet's Modern Masters at Sadler's Wells, reviewed
My moment of the week was stumbling into the shocking, fantastical Cabinet of Curiosities in the Alexander McQueen show at…
A legendary piece of iconoclastic dance returns. Does the piece still stand up?
Funny how things turn upside-down with time. A work of contemporary dance that made an iconoclastic splash decades ago is…
Will the real Swan Lake please stand up
Ismene Brown unpicks the great enigma of ballet theatre
The Associates at Sadler's Wells reviewed: another acutely inventive work from Crystal Pite
The prodigious streetdancer Tommy Franzén pops up everywhere from family-friendly hip-hop shows by ZooNation, Boy Blue and Bounce to serious…
London International Mime Festival review: on juggling, dance and Wayne Rooney's hair transplant
January is something of a palate-cleanser for the year, as the London International Mime Festival flies in plane-loads of companies…
ENB’s Swan Lake: the rights and wrongs of ballet thighs
There’s been heated disagreement over the past week about what’s right and wrong. Is the rocket-propelled ex-Bolshoi enfant terrible Ivan…
Royal Opera’s Orfeo, Roundhouse: shouts its agenda so loudly the music struggles to be heard
What a week to stage an opera about art’s power to challenge institutional authority, oppression — even death itself. Orfeo’s…
An American in Paris: a zingy new Wheeldon dance-musical that you won’t want to miss
A new year must start with hope and resolution, and if you’re very rich, with influence in the highest places,…
Sacred Monsters, Sadler’s Wells: Sylvie Guillem and Akram Kham’s captivating final boogie
I’m dashing between dance theatres at the moment and there’s just so much to tell you about. I could linger…
Sylvie Guillem interview: ‘A lot of people hate me. Bon. You can’t please everybody’
On the eve of her retirement, Sylvie Guillem talks to Ismene Brown about legs, boobs and changing people’s lives
Thomas Ades’s Polaris at Sadler’s Wells: the dance premiere of the year
This has been an extraordinarily exciting fortnight, on and off stage. Premieres in anything from ice-skating to classical ballet, charismatic…
To call this offering a book is an abuse of language
I picked up this book with real enthusiasm. Who cannot be entranced by those 20 years after the second world…
Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Royal Ballet battle for the heart of English dance
English ballet erupted out of the second world war in the hands of the rival choreographers Frederick Ashton and Robert…
