Sadler’s wells

January as you would wish it: Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs reviewed

5 January 2019 9:00 am

The Royal Ballet’s Les Patineurs is January as you would wish it. No slush, no new-year sales, no streaming chest…

Jill Johnson and Christopher Roman in William Forsythe’s Catalogue

William Forsythe on the day the US government threatened to arrest him

6 October 2018 9:00 am

William Forsythe has been called a lot of things in his four decades as a dancemaker: wilful provocateur, ‘pretentious as…

Akram Khan in Mirella Weingarten’s starkly stupendous set

A smidge of self-indulgence amid the power and grace: Akram Khan’s Xenos reviewed

9 June 2018 9:00 am

‘Comedy Sunil Lanba, Salman Quaraishi, Omar Syed…’ Names play from a crackling gramophone. We hear what they were before the…

How do these Shaolin monks square six shows a week with monking?

How do these Shaolin monks square six shows a week with monking?

14 April 2018 9:00 am

The Shaolin monks are no strangers to the stage. Their home in Dengfeng is a major stop on the Chinese…

Paying homage to the seated diva: a still from the 2016 documentary about La Chana

Louise Levene meets the tormented queen of flamenco, who bewitched Dali & Peter Sellers

3 March 2018 9:00 am

A frail old woman sits alone on a chair on a darkened stage. There are flowers in her hair. She…

The nymphs are hit and miss, but Osipova is a witty, multifaceted Sylvia: the Royal Ballet’s Sylvia reviewed

16 December 2017 9:00 am

You can pay homage to a ballet classic or you can tear it up and reinvent it. Both approaches were…

Wayne’s world

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Ballet would have been an obvious revenue stream for Sadler’s Wells when it reopened back in 1998 but straight-up classics…

Dancers of the Royal Ballet in Christopher Wheeldon’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Pretty vacant

7 October 2017 9:00 am

Alice is at it again. Christopher Wheeldon’s 2011 three-act ballet began another sell-out run at Covent Garden last week. It’s…

Bring on the dancing-girls: Follies at the Oliver

Age concern

16 September 2017 9:00 am

Stephen Sondheim’s Follies takes a huge leap into the past. It’s 1971 and we meet two middle-aged couples who knew…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Ninja Turtles have no place in Cinderella

18 July 2015 9:00 am

What could induce a grown-up, rational, childless person to go to see the ballet of Cinderella? You’ll expect to cringe…

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

4 July 2015 9:00 am

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

20 June 2015 9:00 am

I often regret that I’m writing in the past tense here, but never more than about milonga. It is such…

Sylvie Guillem, in savage-child tunic and a Mowgli wig, says farewell to her fans

Is that Sylvie Guillem? Or R2-D2? Guillem's farewell dance at Sadler’s Wells reviewed

6 June 2015 9:00 am

There’s been a clutch of middle-aged danseuses taking leave of life in one way or another recently. We’ve seen the…

Boris Johnson on his plans for the Olympic Park: inspired or whimsical?

18 April 2015 9:00 am

Jack Wakefield on the Mayor’s ambitious, not to say whimsical, vision for the Olympic Park

50 shades of beige: English National Ballet's Modern Masters at Sadler's Wells, reviewed

21 March 2015 9:00 am

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?

28 February 2015 9:00 am

Funny how things turn upside-down with time. A work of contemporary dance that made an iconoclastic splash decades ago is…