Sadler’s Wells was packed for Birmingham Royal Ballet. The evening had the stardust of Acosta’s name scattered all over it. The first work in Curated by Acosta was about home. About building a home, building cities, building Birmingham. About migrants leaving one home and making a new one in another country, this country. The pain of leaving old love behind as those you meet as friends turn into roots. . ‘You have to risk everything to gain something’. Performed by an ensemble of … [Read more...]
Hansel and Gretel – Colour House Theatre
The Colour House Children’s Theatre is a tiny seventy seater theatre situated in the heart of the attractive Merton Abbey Mills arts village. The theatre opened in 1995 in a five-hundred-year-old listed building and since then it has staged over 80 original musical adaptations of famous fairy stories and more than 100,000 people have viewed their productions. There are little theatres like this all over England and they are an important theatrical entry point for both children and performers … [Read more...]
Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch – Bluebeard | Review
Did you enjoy it? Not much. Did you admire it? Yes. Why? The energy of the movement on stage. The talent and charisma of the new young dancers. Only the two central characters are ‘familiars’ part of the company when Bausch died. (This is her modern legacy.) The work’s contemporary themes interrogating an individual’s capacity for control in society, the subjugation of women and the immolation that’s controlling, surrendering obsessive need dressed as love. And yet Bluebeard was devised by … [Read more...]
Michael Keegan-Dolan / Teaċ Daṁsa – MÁM at Sadler’s Wells
Following the runaway success of creator and choreographer Michael Keegan-Dolan with his fabulous Loch na hEala there’s been a sense of excitement about his work and originality. Performed by his twelve strong company of international contemporary dancers, Teac Damsa, MÁM is the first work since Loch na hEala Keegan-Dolan has brought to Sadler’s Wells from where he lives and works in County Kerry. Created in collaboration with his dancers it’s intended to reflect that place from which it … [Read more...]
Annual Dance Taster Festival: Sadler’s Wells Sampled 2020
Sampled at Sadler’s Wells is always fun. Short bursts of different genres of dance performed to different styles of music equates energy. It’s not for children but the format suits their attention spans and they come, dressed in glitter and audibly expressing their enjoyment. It’s not a staid experience. It is an occasion when extracts of some of the work that will be shown at Sadler’s and the Peacock during the forthcoming year are available to be tried to see if the various forms will be … [Read more...]
Radio & Juliet – Faun – MсGregor + Mugler | Review
The famous duet, the Faun, describing the meeting and joining of two woodland spirits by way of the distinguished choreographer, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and the gorgeous music of Claude Debussy usually thrills and this performance in Act II of a triple bill of dance at the London Coliseum certainly does. Vaychesla Lopatin, a principal dancer of the Markinsky Ballet performs in the duet with the athleticism demanded of the role while Anastasia Stashkevich is appealingly fey in this production as … [Read more...]
The Snowman – Birmingham Repertory Theatre | Review
The Snowman is an annual favourite at The Peacock Theatre. Without dialogue the music and songs composed by Howard Blake and played by an orchestra that’s present lead the tone and cracking pace of the show, capable of being understood by the smallest members of the audience. The magical illusions of theatre are described on entry to the auditorium even before the show has begun by way of the displayed dramatic set designed by Ruari Murchinson with lighting by Tim Mitchell creating the effect … [Read more...]